LaTeX can't find any files

[xigoi at disroot.org]

On 2023-08-02 09:53, Markus Kohm wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 1. August 2023, 22:27:48 CEST schrieb xigoi--- via 
> tex-live:
>> I've installed TeXLive on a quite new installation of Debian, but when 
>> I
>> try to compile anything, it gives the following message:
>> 
>> ! LaTeX Error: File `article.cls' not found.
>> 
>> If I manually copy article.cls next to the file I'm compiling, it will
>> complain that it can't find some other files that are part of the 
>> LaTeX
>> installation. kpsewhich article.cls doesn't return anything.
> 
> Maybe you've a broken setting of, e.g., TEXINPUTS. Have a look into the 
> result
> of:
> 
> 	printenv TEXINPUTS
> 
> and
> 
> 	kpsewhich -var-value TEXINPUTS
> 
> The first one should be empty, the second one should contain the 
> texmf-dist
> directory of the TeX Live installation.
> 
> Other settings also could be broken. These are usually configured in 
> the files
> listed by
> 
> 	kpsewhich -a texmf.cnf
> 
> The problem could also be the result of missing or not updated ls-R 
> files. You
> can try
> 
> 	texhash
> 
> (or sudo texhash if the user is not allowed to write to the texmf 
> directories)
> to generate them. But this should not happen with two different 
> installations.

Thank you for the response!

I checked the TEXINPUTS variable and for some reason, it contained 
"/usr/share/texmf-dist", but not the actual path, which is 
"/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist". This is weird because the config file 
at "/usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf", which was found by kpsewhich, 
clearly says:

     TEXMFROOT = /usr/share/texlive
     TEXMFDIST = $TEXMFROOT/texmf-dist
     TEXMFMAIN = $TEXMFDIST

Alright, so when I manually add the correct path to TEXINPUTS (I'm still 
not sure how to do it the right way), it does find article.cls, but now 
there's another error:

     kpathsea: Running mktextfm cmr12
     mktextfm: Cannot find mktex.opt; check your installation.
     kpathsea: Appending font creation commands to missfont.log.
     ! Font OT1/cmr/m/n/14.4=cmr12 at 14.4pt not loadable: Metric (TFM) 
file not fou
     nd.

It seems to be looking for the file cmr12.tfm, which exists at 
"/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/tfm/public/cm/". The command I'm 
running is:

     TEXINPUTS='.:/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist//:' pdflatex test.tex