[XeTeX] Installation problem

[Jonathan Kew]

On 10 Jan 2005, at 9:29 pm, Christophe DAMAS wrote:

> I haven't found any xetex.crash.log file on my disk. After having 
> uninstall xetex with i-installer, I try to install it again with a 
> special look at the subprocessus windows : I got a message concerning 
> texhash. In fact the ls-R file in texmf.local was corrupted (there was 
> an error on a first line). I don't why because I use a script to 
> generate this file. After solving that problem, I configurate xetex 
> using i-installer and I got the following message :
> xetex: unrecognized option `-efmt=xetex'
> Try `xetex --help' for more information.
> Error: `xetex -ini -efmt=xetex -progname=xetex *xetex.ini' failed.
>
> I build xetex.xfmt using the following command  xetex -ini -xfmt=xetex 
> -progname=xetex xetex.ini with the terminal. It works fine.
>
> Is there a problem in the fmtutil.cnf. But there is nothing in this 
> file to chose between -efmt option or -xfmt ?

This sounds as though the xetex configuration process failed to update 
the fmtutil script (not the fmtutil.cnf file) on your system.

The current xetex i-Package was set up to work with Gerben's TeX 
i-Package as it was a few months ago, and it's possible that recent 
changes to the underlying TeX system have led to a problem. Or it may 
be that you have a different version of fmtutil from somewhere else. 
(Have you used Fink or DarwinPorts or some other method to install a 
TeX system? This can lead to confusion.)

The next release of xetex, when I get time to assemble all the pieces, 
will be based on TeXlive 2004 and will (like the other programs in 
TL2004) use the .fmt extension; it will no longer need to modify 
fmtutil during installation, and so should be less vulnerable to 
problems like this.

As you've worked out how to build the format file yourself, you could 
ignore the fmtutil problem for now; once you've built xetex.xfmt (and 
xelatex.xfmt, if desired), you shouldn't need it anyway. One point 
though: you may want to rebuild the format with the command
	xetex -ini -xfmt=xetex -progname=xetex \*xetex.ini
(note the asterisk), in order to enable the extended features of e-TeX. 
You'd need this if you have any interest in right-to-left languages, 
for example, to enable the \TeXXeTstate command.

Jonathan