Problem changing TEXMFHOME setting

[Norbert Preining]

>     tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME ~/path/to/tree

That should work, and is the recommended way ;-) Unless ....

>  - OS LinuxMint 21.2 (Victoria)
>  - tlmgr revision 60693 (2021-10-04 04:24:25 +0200)
>  - tlmgr using installation: /usr/share/texlive
>  - TeX Live (https://tug.org/texlive) version 2021

Something is messed up in the way Arch does TeX Live packaging.

With upstream TeX Live in ~/tl/2023:

$ kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFHOME
/home/norbert/texmf
$ cat ~/tl/2023/texmf.cnf
% (Public domain.)
% This texmf.cnf file should contain only your personal changes from the
% original texmf.cnf (for example, as chosen in the installer).
%
% That is, if you need to make changes to texmf.cnf, put your custom
% settings in this file, which is .../texlive/YYYY/texmf.cnf, rather than
% the distributed file (which is .../texlive/YYYY/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf).
% And include *only* your changed values, not a copy of the whole thing!
%
TEXMFLOCAL = /usr/local/share/texmf

$ tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME ~/lib/tex
tlmgr: setting texmf TEXMFHOME to /home/norbert/lib/tex (in /home/norbert/tl/2023/texmf.cnf)

$ kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFHOME
/home/norbert/lib/tex

$ cat ~/tl/2023/texmf.cnf
% (Public domain.)
% This texmf.cnf file should contain only your personal changes from the
% original texmf.cnf (for example, as chosen in the installer).
%
% That is, if you need to make changes to texmf.cnf, put your custom
% settings in this file, which is .../texlive/YYYY/texmf.cnf, rather than
% the distributed file (which is .../texlive/YYYY/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf).
% And include *only* your changed values, not a copy of the whole thing!
%
TEXMFLOCAL = /usr/local/share/texmf
TEXMFHOME = /home/norbert/lib/tex

$

tlmgr conf texmf writes into TEXMFROOT/texmf.cnf
This seems to not be writable, or it is in a strange place.

Did you get a message like the above:
	tlmgr: setting texmf TEXMFHOME to /home/norbert/lib/tex (in /home/norbert/tl/2023/texmf.cnf)
If not, nothing changed.

Hope that helps.

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                              https://www.preining.info
Mercari Inc.     +     IFMGA Guide     +     TU Wien     +     TeX Live
GPG: 0x860CDC13   fp: F7D8 A928 26E3 16A1 9FA0 ACF0 6CAC A448 860C DC13