LaTeX can't find any files

[Alois Steindl]

Am 02.08.2023 um 23:01 schrieb xigoi--- via tex-live:
>
>> 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
>
> Update: I've now found out that the config line with TEXMFDIST is, for 
> some weird reason, being ignored. If I run the compiler like this, 
> everything works properly:
>
>     pdflatex -cnf-line='TEXMFDIST = $TEXMFROOT/texmf-dist' test.tex

I can only second the recommendation by Zdenek: Get rid of all 
TEX-environment variables. A properly installed TeXLive (without special 
demands) runs fine without any of these.

You should find these variables using

set | grep "TEX"

in a bourne-like shell. They are usually set in the initialization files 
like ~/.bashrc, ~/bash_profile, ~/.profile, /etc/profile, in some files 
below /etc/profile.d, or anywhere else.

There must have been some previous TeX installation, which did set these 
values. Is there anything below /usr/share/texmf-dist?

For a quick test you could also do

unset TEXMFDIST

pdflatex test.tex

Good luck

Alois