TEXMFDBS and TEXMFHOME

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2020-04-16 at 15:35:03 +0200, Christian Mondrup wrote:

 > A few days ago I installed texlive 2020 on my linux work station like I
 > did with the preceding releases. I've been using TeX for decades and
 > carry with me a TEXMFHOME. So I filled in its path like I use to do.
 >
 > Upon a successful installation I checked the release news and noticed a
 > new option 'tlmgr check texmfdbs'. I performed the check and got an
 > error report on TEXMFHOME 'in TEXMF not in TEXMFDBS, but has ls-R file'.
 >
 > So I checked the variable TEXMFDBS in
 > <root>/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf and saw that my TEXMFHOME
 > was not reflected. I'm a little surprised because I did specify my
 > TEXMFHOME when I started installing texlive-2020.
 >
 > Is that intentional?
 >
 > My workaround was to copy the assignment of TEXMFDBS to
 > <root>/texlive/texmf.cnf and add my TEXMFHOME
 >
 > TEXMFDBS =
 > {!!$TEXMFHOME,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFSYSCONFIG,!!$TEXMFSYSVAR,!!$TEXMFDIST}
 >
 > This solved the problem. But the idea of my local texmf.cnf is that it
 >
 > 'should contain only your personal changes from the original texmf.cnf'
 >
 > I know how to add to the value of shell variable. But I didn't manage to
 > find out how to do that with TeX conf variable.
 >
 > Could I have added my TEXMFHOME to TEXMFDBS otherwise, ie. without
 > repeating the already existing assignment?

By default there is no ls-R file in TEXMFHOME and TEXMFHOME is not in
TEXMFDBS.  This is intentional because the number of files in
TEXMFHOME is relatively small and a database lookup is not necessary.
As a result, there is no need to run mktexlsr whenever you add new
files and this is the main reason for the default settings.

I don't know what created the ls-R file though.  I recommend to remove
it and as well as the entries in texmf.cnf you made.

There will be no noticeable speed improvement unless you have hundreds
of files in in TEXMFHOME.

If you add something to 2020/texmf.cnf and forget to copy this file to
2021/texmf.cnf next year you run into trouble and it's not always
easy to find out what goes wrong.

If you _have_ a lot of files in TEXMFHOME you can consider to move
then to TEXMFLOCAL if possible.  That would avoid a customized setup
and all the trouble it causes.  Please note that TeX Live never
touches anything in TEXMFLOCAL.  Your files are as save there as in
TEXMFHOME.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
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