Default Paper Size

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Troy,

(also answering here, but please refrain from double posting, first try
one, then the other).

first of all, I have no idea about Fedora's packaging of TL, but I know
how I did the packaging in Debian, and I know upstream TL quite well.

> The command "tlmgr paper letter" does not seem to affect LuaTeX

I don't think that tlmgr paper will work out of the box in Fedora.
tlmgr is a package manager, and making it work would mean interfering
with rpm/dnf/whatever fedora uses. Thus, I guess that your changes
didn't work.

> > sudo tlmgr paper letter
> tlmgr: setting paper size for dvipdfmx to letter:
> /usr/share/texlive/texmf-config/dvipdfmx/dvipdfmx.cfg
> tlmgr: setting paper size for dvips to letter:
> /usr/share/texlive/texmf-config/dvips/config/config.ps
> tlmgr: setting paper size for pdftex to letter:
> /usr/share/texlive/texmf-config/tex/generic/tex-ini-files/pdftexconfig.tex
> tlmgr: setting paper size for psutils to letter:
> /usr/share/texlive/texmf-config/psutils/paper.cfg
> tlmgr: setting paper size for xdvi to letter:
> /usr/share/texlive/texmf-config/xdvi/XDvi
> tlmgr: An error has occurred. See above messages. Exiting.

It is strange that there is no other indication of what went wrong.
If you can reproduce this with 
	tlmgr -v paper letter
(or even -v -v) and send me the output, I can take a look.

> This is almost certainly a Fedora TeX Live packaging issue, and it could be

Yes, so I suggest contacting Fedora about this. Nothing we here can fix.
The least this list (luatex), but even the main tex-live mailing list
wouldn't be perfect (although some fedora users might help you there).

> resolved (I'm confident) by manually installing the binary TeX Live
> distribution directly from TUG (which I have done many times before).

Yes, that is what I do, too.

> However, this is an undesirable solution because it may cause other
> packages (that depend on TeX Live) to be "confused" and also would result
> in twice the storage used (having side-by-side installations of TeX Live).

confusion comes from PATH setup. You have to make sure that the TUG TL
comes first in the PATH.

Concerning storage size: In Debian you can use the "equivs" command to
create a package that *fakes* an installation, see
	https://www.tug.org/texlive/debian.html
under "Integrating vanilla TeX Live with Debian"

I am pretty sure there is something similar for Fedora, too.

>    - Is it possible to change the default paper size without having to use
>    tlmgr?  Does tlmgr call/execute a particular command that could possibly be
>    executed manually?

Change the configuration files used. The question is where these files
are located in Fedora. Maybe in /etc/texmf ?

Best

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                              https://www.preining.info
Mercari Inc.     +     IFMGA Guide     +     TU Wien     +     TeX Live
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