[tldistro] Whether/how to ship tlmgr

[Ken Brown]

Hi Norbert,

On 3/27/2016 10:06 PM, Norbert Preining wrote:
> Hi Ken,
>
>> I noticed that Debian ships tlmgr but only allows it to run in user
>> mode.  This rules out 'tlmgr paper', among other things.  I'm
>
> There is a reason for this - tlmgr paper requires changes to the
> formats and this cannot be easily done if there are not
> write permissions, unless you start having format dumps in the
> home directory of users, which I *strongly* advise against it.
>
> I have tried to make all actions in tlmgr that do not need write
> access to the main tree user-mode usable.

Sorry, I think I was unclear in explaining what I want to achieve.  I 
don't expect to ship a fully functional tlmgr, just one that's slightly 
less restrictive than Debian's.

I want ordinary users to be able to run tlmgr in user mode to do things 
that don't require write access to the main tree (e.g., 'tlmgr 
--usermode install'), as in Debian.  But I also want *privileged* users 
to be able to run tlmgr in system mode to do some things that do require 
write access to the main tree (e.g., 'tlmgr paper').  On the other hand, 
I don't want anyone to be able to run 'tlmgr install' (in system mode) 
because that will interfere with Cygwin's package manager.

> The patch you add is by itself surely not enough

My patch is intended to achieve the goals I stated above.  For example:

- A user who runs 'tlmgr install' will get an error message saying that 
this action is only available in user mode.

- A privileged user who runs 'tlmgr paper' will succeed, with everything 
written to the main tree.

- A user who runs 'tlmgr --usermode paper' will get the error message 
that you recently installed; my patch doesn't change that.

Please take another look and tell me if you still see problems in 
principle (there may still be details that need to be tweaked).

Thanks.

Ken