[texworks] texworks ubuntu package

[Stefan Löffler]

Hi Jelle,

Am 2009-12-18 10:52, schrieb Jelle Huisman:
> On 18/12/2009 06:27, Stefan Löffler wrote:
>> You can't deny that TL (in general) is typically used with Tw.
>> Furthermore, I wouldn't consider LaTeX as "not at all necessary". The
>> problem is that Ubuntu (still) ships with an old version of TL.
>>    
>
> For people who use plain TeX or the ConTeXt minimals distribution,
> LaTeX is in fact not necessary at all. And LaTeX users might have
> installed a more recent TL manually, rather than relying on what
> Ubuntu ships.

LaTeX was a bad expression. Of course LaTeX is not necessary. What I
meant was that some (additional) TeX programs are commonly necessary to
use Tw the way it is supposed to be used. OTOH, the package recommends
the texlive package, not a specific LaTeX package. How that package
depends on other (possible LaTeX-related) packages I have no influence
on - that's the business of the person(s) managing that package.
BTW: I'm running Tl'09, FWIW ;).

>> On the other hand I could remove TL completely from the list of programs
>> related to Tw. This could leave people who are fairly new to LaTeX/Tw
>> with an essentially useless program (if they only install Tw without
>> TL), however, without any possibility to easily see or fix the problem.
>> This is what the recommendations are for, anyway.
>>    
>
> I'm in favour of removing TL from the list. I think it's much better
> to educate new users so that they learn early on that "Tw is not
> (La)TeX". Just make sure there is an note somewhere that explains that
> Tw is just a front end (like Dick Koch does on the TeXshop website:
> http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/obtaining.html ).

As I stated above, I did not intend to equate Tw and LaTeX. But _some_
TeX or derivative/similar program is "commonly found on typical
installations" (something like this is stated somewhere in the Debian
packaging manual regarding the meaning of "recommends", IIRC). That's
why I included it in the first place.
Regarding the note: this certainly should be done, the question is just:
where? There is the launchpad page, but I doubt many read that in its
entirety. There is the GC page, which is not really a suitable place.
And there's the Tw homepage, which is currently rather rudimentary and
mainly contains links, AFAIK prebuilt binaries are concerned. So the
problem I see is that the Tw homepage is the only place a "normal" user
should need to read, as all the others are very technical and
development-oriented. But on that page it doesn't really fit in.

>> So, I realize that there is a problem here, but I'm unsure as to how to
>> fix it. Any suggestions anyone (in particular from those who maintain Tw
>> elsewhere)?
>>    
>
> I vote for removing the TL dependency by removing the TL recommendation.
>
> My €0.02

Noted. But again: it's not (technically) a dependency. A dependency is
something that has to be installed for the app to run. This is not the
case for Tw. A recommendation, OTOH, is something that is typically
found together with the app itself. And this is true for TL and Tw.
Unfortunately, since Ubuntu changed their policy (recommendations are
installed by default, whether one wants them or not) and doesn't include
a recent TL distro, I may indeed have to work around that.

-Stefan