[tldistro] tlmgr lose functions in packages built from source

[Robby Workman]

On Thu, 19 Nov 2009, Norbert Preining wrote:

> On Do, 19 Nov 2009, Grissiom wrote:
>> So you mean package builders should remove _all_ of the tlmgr staff in their
>> package? Even I have found some tlmgr staff
>> in texlive-20091107-texmf.tar.xz:
>
> Wht is in there is (together with other things) what constitutes
> TeX Live 2009. What distributors package is a different thing.
>
> Do you want to ship something which does not work?


Of course not.


> tlmgr is ment to be used in a very specific layout of texmf trees,
> location of binaries etc, simply the way TeX Live 2009 as it is
> when installed from DVD/Net looks like.


Well, that was/is not clear, at least from my vantage point.
I'll freely admit (as I stated in a previous mail) that I'm *far* 
from a TeXpert :-) so my testing is very limited in scope.  I did
not really know *how* to test tlmgr nor what exactly it was supposed
to do, so I included it in the package as a "just in case" thing.
I was under the impression that it could be used to update various
parts of TeXLive (e.g. fonts, packages, etcetera) by the admin,
even if such was *strongly* discouraged since TeXLive had been 
installed via the package manager.  Basically, everything other 
than tlmgr passed the "Works for me" test, and lots of our users
were wanting TeXLive, so what better way to get some wider 
testing and feedback on the package?


> If oyu move the trees, put your binaries somewhere else (Debian has
> the binaries in /usr/bin, all the texmf treees of TL merged into
> /usr/share/texmf-texlive, ...) it simply will not work. And, especially,
> the update mechanism will not work even if you manage to *start* tlmgr,
> since it will put files in completely different places.


Sure, that makes sense.  That's one of the reasons that I (well, in
general, Slackware as a whole) try to follow what the upstream
distribution does - I tried to replicate the directory structure and
contents of the official TeXLive iso.


> Actually, I am surprised that people are packaging stuff they seem to
> have never used? Did you check the functionality of tlmgr? Does it work
> with the packaging system of your distribution?


See above.


> Why do you think Debian, but also Suse, has removed those files. You
> cannot have both, tlmgr *and* distribution specific packaging.


This isn't intended as a flame, but "Debian (re)moved it" isn't nearly 
enough reason for something to get (re)moved.


> Please *EVERYONE* here on the list, before packaging make yourself
> comfortable with *what* those programs are doing, and only *afterwards*
> start packaging.


Had I done that, there wouldn't *be* a package yet.  Don't misunderstand
me - in general, that's *definitely* the correct approach to take as a
packager - but when the packager isn't intimately familiar with the 
software, there comes a point where he/she has to put something out there
for the users and get/hope for feedback and improvements on the things
that weren't done optimally.


> We (as upstreeam TL) would prefer if people get a good experience with
> TL, also with the distribution packages. But if we see many people
> coming like "I have TL on distribution XY, and tlmgr does not work"
> that is not what we want.


Completely understandable.  Perhaps I missed some stuff, but there
seemed to be a big hole in the documentation with respect to building
packages for distributions, so I (with help from Grissiom mainly) had
to figure out the kinks along the way.

-RW