[tlbuild] Building an embedded tex/latex for a ruby gem.

[Jason Kenney]

Perhaps I should clarify:
   Similar to what the ruby solr and sqlite gems do, I would like a gem that allows for the download and configuration
of a Tex Live distribution. The idea is a rails project should have all dependencies installable from just typing 'bundle install'.
The reason I was using this mailing list was to ask for help in finding out what binaries/source is needed to have a minimal working
install that can run from a non standard directory (ruby gems have a bin directory for instance), and an easy way to install this
when the computer could be mac or linux (I can figure out how to script the OS detection, I just need the diff between the two platforms in
installation procedure).
   The other aspect is licensing, as in what actions are permissible on my part.
   Thanks.

On May 5, 2013, at 2:36 PM, Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Norbert Preining wrote:
>> Hi Jason,
>> 
>> this is a mailing list for the builders of binaries for the TeX Live
>> distribution. I am now since quite some time in the business of TeX Live,
>> and I have absolutely no idea what you want to ask us. So either
>> rephrase, or write to a different mailing list.
> 
> My guess is that the author wants to process (La)TeX in ruby (reasons
> might vary, for example to be able to create PDF documents from LaTeX
> code in a web application). One can easily install a library to do
> that (gem install whatever-the-tex-package-is-called), but needs to
> install TeX (Live) separately. My guess is that the author would want
> the package (gem in ruby jargon) to install some ("embedded") TeX
> distribution automatically without having to install TeX Live
> separately.
> 
> But in case I'm right - yes, this is the wrong mailing list to request
> the creation of a ruby package. If you want to develop one yourself,
> you can get help with questions related to building the binaries and
> possibly related to specifics of creating a tex distribution yourself,
> but keep in mind that:
> - The whole TeX Live distribution takes a few GB (you can also install
> smaller components only)
> - If you would want to compile binaries as part of installation,
> building them takes anywhere from 20 min to 5 hours depending on the
> speed of the machine, but I believe that pre-compiled binaries should
> work
> - It's a large amount of work (depending on what you might want to
> achieve; it took years and years before some linux distributions
> switched from tetex to TeX Live; I created a small distribution for
> ConTeXt from TeX Live in a few days, but it doesn't support LaTeX and
> related tools which made the work easier).
> - Probably the easiest thing to do would be to make the gem just a
> wrapper which would call the original TeX Live installer in the
> background and set the paths so that ruby tools would be able to find
> and execute the binaries.
> - It depends on one's motivation and knowledge, but the amount of work
> needed by the developer to create a gem might not even justify the
> cumulative time spared by users who would otherwise need to install
> TeX Live on their own (unless it provides additional functionality).
> 
> For any ruby & ruby packaging related questions you cannot expect much
> help on the tex-related mailing lists. Also, if you need further help,
> this also isn't the most appropriate list. I would suggest you to try
> asking also on tex.stackexchange.com, or on some other list (not sure
> which one; maybe just "tex-live" on the same server) if you intend to
> try to build a "distribution" or a package to install tex live
> automatically *yourself*. If you are seeking for someone to create it
> for you, the chances are close-to-zero, both because there are hardly
> any hard core ruby developers here and because most people consider
> installing TeX Live as easy enough compared to all other development
> that needs to be done to create some nice & useful ruby application.
> 
> (I apologize if I missed the point of the original question.)
> 
> Mojca
> 
>> On Fr, 03 Mai 2013, Jason Kenney wrote:
>>> I've noticed the few really old ruby-latex gems out there simply hope that the latex executable is on the system path. I would prefer if possible to have gem installation also install the executables and tex packages needed. This would make migrations and maintenance very easy. Any suggestions on where to start?