[tldistro] archive of numbered releases of install-tl-unx.tar.gz

[Karl Berry]

Hi David,

    Is there an official triplet version for install-tl-unx.tar.gz ?

No. We update it every day, based on the current sources, rather than
making "releases" of it. I think you are the first person to want to
install install-tl as a system program itself. It seems ... unusual.

    Isn't it easier to have a source directory name install-tl without suffix ?

That makes it too likely that files will get accidentally overwritten.
If you don't want the suffix, you'll need to strip it off, as I suppose
you are already doing.

    Next question is whether there exists an archive of older
    install-tl-unx.tar.gz releases.

Norbert's https://texlive.info/ site is the most extensive, as far as I
know.  It's updated every day (for now). For instance:
https://texlive.info/tlnet-archive/2021/01/21/tlnet/

You can download files from there directly.
(The installer and other tarballs are not, in fact, in svn.)

    The reason is that it is then easy to download old SHA hashfiles and
    contents, of the older releases.

But it's just the installer, not TeX itself. Hence not actually very
interesting, as far as I can tell. I don't know of any particular reason
to use any version of the installer except the latest. That's why things
are set up as they are.

I think you already answered your other questions yourself (besides the
other reply I just sent).  Let us know if anything else is still
open. --best, karl.