Integrating vanilla TeX Live 2021 with Debian

[ud.usenetcorrespondence at web.de]

Hello Norbert,

thank you for your quick reply.
 
[removal of Debian packages in the course of vanilla TeX Live installation]
 
> ACtually, there is no need to remove anything. I have upstream TL 2019,
> 2020, 2021 and Debian's TeX Live installed.
>
> If you are NOT running short of disk space, no need to uninstall.

Actually I might run short of disk space: :-)

I intend to integrate vanilla TeX Live with Knoppix 9.1,
<https://www.knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix910-en.html>,  which is
a live system based on Debian bullseye with some packages of
Debian sid and which can be run from DVD, USB-Stick, 
(micro) SSD-card, external USB-hard-disk etc. The disk space depends
on the medium in use.

(In the context of teaching about TeX/LaTeX, I would like to produce
USB sticks from which course participants can boot a device of the
computer pool in order to have an up-to-date TeX distribution available
immediately.)

[Older releases of the Debian Policy]

> Since no actual files are installed (besides into the doc directory)
> there is nothing of interest in the policy.

[Pattern of upstream-version-numbers]

> This is not really of relevance for you, right?
> YYYY.XXXXMMDD
> YYYY is the release year of TeX Live: TL 2021 currently
> XXXXMMDD is the day of the most recent checkout of tlnet for package
> updates

Both the policy and the pattern of upstream-version-numbers are
of interest to me:

I think about creating a package which at installation-time
via some script downloads and executes install-tl and changes
environment-variables and at removal time undoes changes of
environment-variables and carries out sudo tlmgr remove --all
or the like. (Probably the script for calling install-tl at
installation-time should provide the opportunity to pass options
to install-tl.)
Such a package would remove previous releases of TeX Live while
installing the current one.

If I ever accomplish this, files will be installed/removed by
the package. 

Sincerely

Ulrich