tex live 2021 installation question
Vladimir Lomov
lomov.vl at yandex.ru
Wed Aug 18 04:19:09 CEST 2021
Hello,
(from TeX Live and Archlinux user here ;)
** Bob <bobabc at bellsouth.net> [2021-08-17 16:15:01 -0400]:
> Hi All,
> I am attempting to do a new installation of tex live 2021 on a new
> installation of fedora 34. When running the installer, I received the msg:
> Enter command: I
> Installing to: /usr/local/texlive/2021
> install-tl: mkdir(/usr/local/texlive/) failed for tree
> /usr/local/texlive/2021: Permission denied at tlpkg/TeXLive/TLUtils.pm line
> 999, <STDIN> line 4.
How do you used to install TeX Live earlier? What did you run to install TeX
Live this time?
> What is the best solution? Should I just mkdir /usr/local/texlive and give
> write permission to all?
It depends on your experience, how you plan to use and maintain TeX Live
installation.
> I found something from archlinux at:
> https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=183146
Which has following topic name: "'Best' way to install programs?" dates 2014
and has very good answers:
Even if you compile from-source, you should still install using pacman.
PKGBUILDs are your friends.
I'd highly recommend staying away from compiling from source. If you don't
know how to make a PKGBUILD for whatever it is you're compiling by hand,
you'll probably regret doing it.
Wether you build packages from source or use binary packages from the repos
you should install using pacman. If you want a package that is not in the
repos nor in the AUR find the source and write PKGBUILD for it. After that
feel free to submit it to AUR.
And even this one
TeX is an exception. There are two good ways to install TeX Live. One is to
use pacman. The other is to use the upstream installer....
I use both: I install TeX Live packages provided by distribution (thank
goodness I'm using Archlinux not RPM/DEB based distributions).
> that recommends creating a new user:
If you don't understand why you need a new user why would you bother go that
way?
Quote from 'cfr' user (which advice you want to follow):
I also recommend *not* installing as root. This is also in line with
upstream's recommendation.
That's not entirely true. Quoting from http://www.tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html
You do not need to be root (administrator on Windows) to install, use, or
manage TeX Live. Indeed, we recommend installing it as a normal user, except
perhaps on MacOSX, where it's conventional to install as administrator.
(Some information about shared installations.) As always, you need to have
permission to write into the destination directory, but TeX Live itself does
not care if you are root or not.
You have option: either to install as root or as ordinary user but in that
case you have to have write permissions to installation directory.
Just run as an user (if there is no such directory)
$ mkdir /usr/local/opt/texlive
If you don't have root rights then you don't have write permissions to
/usr/local/opt directory and that command would fail.
> ==============
> I also recommend *not* installing as root. This is also in line with
> upstream's recommendation. What I did was create a new user and group
> (texlive:texlive). As root, I also created the directory /usr/local/texlive
> and made sure it was owned by the texlive user. Then I logged in as that
> user to install. This works well. Neither the installer nor later use of the
> utilities can touch your home directory or system files. There is no
> downside to this - it is no less convenient than having the installation
> owned by root. So you gain a security benefit for no cost. (Or minimal cost:
> you have to create a single user and group, make one new directory and chmod
> that directory appropriately.)
> # adjust options as desired
> useradd -d /usr/local/texlive -m -g texlive -r -s /bin/sh texlive
> Set a password for the new account, and check ownership and permissions on
> the new directory:
> drwxr-xr-x 7 texlive texlive 4.0K Meh 26 02:14 .
> Then log in as texlive and install.
> =================
> What is the recommended way to solve this permission problem?
Follow three top answers: use your distribution package manager and your
distribution packages.
> --Bob
P.S. If you really want to install TeX Live (TUG, not distribution packages)
you have some options. There are many ways depending on context: what kind of
system you have, how many free space you have, what is your daily tasks, how
much you experienced are, do you want to understand how your system work and
etc. Due to these many factors the TeX Live manual doesn't describe any
particular way because that would be treated (by someone) as "recommendation".
And of course it's impossible to cover all possible variants.
Nevertheless, I'll try to describe two possible ways.
1. Install as root. When this applicable: you have root rights (you could run
commands through sudo), have enough free disk space and you don't mind to do
administration task, for example, to update TeX Live packages.
I won't tell you how to check if you able to run commands through sudo, you
could check that yourself.
I suppose that you want to install TeX Live into /usr/local/opt/texlive/2021
because /usr/local (or /, or /usr, or /usr/local/opt) has plenty of space,
at least 9Gb.
You downloaded install-unx.tar.gz, unpacked it, changed current directory to
install-2021XXXX and now run 'install-tl' as root:
$ sudo ./install-tl
You will be asked to where install TeX Live. You could either change path in
menu and installer will create necessary directory itself or create it
separately, for example, before you run 'install-tl'
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/opt/texlive/2021
$ sudo ./install-tl
Also you could choose either to make symbolic links in /usr/local/bin
(actually I don't remember to where the links are created) or not but then
you have to know how to add /usr/local/opt/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux to
PATH variable.
In general, it is very simple. But there are pitfalls.
a) The installation will be owned by root user so to make any changes, for
example, to update packages, you have to run commands as root. For instance,
to update installed packages:
$ sudo tlmgr update --self
$ sudo tlmgr update --all
b) If you chosen to make symbolic links in /usr/local/bin you couldn't use
several TeX Live installations in parallel in simple way (see below) and you
have to remove previous TeX Live installation if you want to upgrade (2021
-> 2022) (I don't use symlinks so I actually don't check correctness of
this).
c) If you don't use symlinks in /usr/local/bin, for example, you have
several TeX Live installation in parallel, say /usr/local/opt/texlive/2020,
/usr/local/opt/texlive/2021, /usr/local/opt/texlive/2022 (in future) you
should know how to append 'bin/x86_64-linux' path to PATH variable (or
change it). Details depend (a bit) on what shell do you use: bash, zsh,
tcsh, fish...
2. Install as ordinary user. There are two variants here: you either have root
rights but still want to install TeX Live as ordinary user or you don't have
root rights but have enough free space, say in your home directory.
a) If you have root rights just run
$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/opt/texlive/2021
$ sudo chown $(id -un).$(id -gn) /usr/local/opt/texlive/2021
$ ./install-tl
Note that you should run last command as ordinary user. Then you have to
add /usr/local/opt/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux to your user PATH
variable (see 1.c) above).
b) If you don't have root rights but have free space in $HOME directory. Run
installer but choose $HOME/texlive/2021 as installation directory. Don't
forget to add $HOME/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux to PATH variable!
As you see there are many ways to install TeX Live and they vary by details
depending on context.
---
WBR, Vladimir Lomov
--
Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum.
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