[tex-live] "after installation, get package updates from CTAN"

Tristan Miller psychonaut at nothingisreal.com
Thu May 24 14:12:33 CEST 2018


Greetings.

This may have already been discussed here before, but I wanted to
report that I find the wording of the "package updates" option in
the (Unix) DVD installer to be misleading.

The current wording in the user interface is "after install, use tlnet
on CTAN for package updates", and the current wording in the online
documentation at
<http://tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html#x1-270003.2.4>
is "after installation, get package updates from CTAN". Apart from the
fact that the two wordings differ, they are both confusing because they
can be read as meaning that the installer will immediately fetch and
apply CTAN updates once the DVD installation is complete. The first
time I completed a DVD installation, I saw that online updates weren't
immediately applied, and had to consult the documentation in more
detail to find out why.

Said documentation does go on to explain that the actual purpose
of this option is simply to set CTAN as the source of all subsequent
package updates.  Could the wording of the option in the installation
interface not be reformulated to better (i.e., more unambiguously)
reflect this? Maybe it could be changed to one of the following?

* set CTAN as the source for package updates

* set CTAN as the source for subsequent package updates

* after installation, set CTAN as the source for package updates

Even if the wording in the UI is not changed, the documentation should
at least be updated to reflect it.

Regards,
Tristan

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
                  Tristan Miller
Free Software developer, ferret herder, logologist
             https://logological.org/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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