[XeTeX] Newbie troubles with XeTex for Linux

[Steven Shaviro]

> I wonder -- do you *also* have the Ubuntu
> teTeX packages installed, by any chance? (Are they shown as installed
> in Synaptic?) I'm guessing that you may have two TeX installations,
> and xetex got installed (or at least partially installed) with the
> one you aren't actually using!

yes, you are right. There was a teTeX installation at one point; I  
tried to remove all of it, but I seem to have missed parts of it.  
When I do a sudo texhash, I get:
texhash: Updating /usr/share/texmf.ls -R
Does this mean it is only updating the teTeX installation, and not  
the TeXLive one?

> How is TL installed -- using the installation script directly from
> the TeX Live DVD, or is there an Ubuntu package for this? (I don't
> see one in Synaptic on my system.)

I used the installation script from the TeXLive CD.

>>> Where are the xetex binaries installed, and the main configuration
>>> files? It might be helpful to see what is reported by:
>>>
>>>    ls -l `which xetex`
>>>
>>
>> /usr/bin/xetex
>>
>
> That's the output of "which xetex", but not the complete output of
> "ls -l `which xetex`". I'm curious what ls -l says about it because
> that would tell whether it's the actual binary (which would be the
> teTeX-based way to install it) or a symlink to a binary that's
> elsewhere (which I think would be the TeXLive way).

When I try to run:
  ls -l 'which xetex
all I get is:
ls: which xetex: No such file or directory
Am I somehow getting the syntax wrong?


> I'm guessing that your real TeXLive binaries live somewhere like /usr/
> local/texlive/2005/bin/i386-linux, and either this directory is in
> the PATH or there are symlinks in /usr/bin. To work as expected, the
> xetex binaries would need to be installed in the same way, otherwise
> they won't find the same configuration files.

/usr/local/texlive/2005/bin/i-386-linux is indeed included in the PATH.

>>
>>
>>>    kpsewhich texmf.cnf
>>>
>>
>> /usr/local/texlive/2005/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
>>
>>
>>>    kpsewhich fmtutil.cnf
>>>
>>
>> /usr/local/texlive/2005/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf
>>
>>
>>>  grep xetex `kpsewhich texmf.cnf`
>>>
>>
>> TEXINPUTS.xetex         = .;$TEXMF/tex/{plain,generic,}//
>>
>
> The TL2005 version of texmf.cnf isn't really set up well for xetex.
> It would be better to change this to:
>
>    TEXINPUTS.xetex = .;$TEXMF/tex/{xetex,plain,generic,}//
>
> and the preceding line which probably reads:
>
>    TEXINPUTS.xelatex	= .;$TEXMF/tex/{latex,generic,}//
>
> should be changed to:
>
>    TEXINPUTS.xelatex	= .;$TEXMF/tex/{xelatex,latex,generic,}//
>
> (By the time TL2006 is ready, we should have all this in place
> properly!)

I made these changes.

>> OTFFONTS = .;$TEXMF/fonts/otf/{xetex,}//
>>
>>
>>>  grep xetex `kpsewhich fmtutil.cnf`
>>>
>>
>> got nothing.
>>
>> I also looked at the file directly and I did *not* find the lines:
>>
>>
>>> # XeTeX formats
>>> xetex		xetex		-		*xetex.ini
>>> xelatex		xetex		language.dat	*xelatex.ini
>>>
>>
>> So is that the source of the problem? What should I do to correct it?
>>
>
> That's at least part of the problem; and you should be able to add
> those lines to the end of the file.

I added these lines to the end of the file.

> I think it's also likely that the xetex-related input files
> (xetex.ini, xelatex.ini, unicode-letters.tex, various LaTeX packages
> and .cfg files, etc.) have been installed under /usr/local/share/
> texmf (which is searched by teTeX), and may not be found by a TL-
> based installation. So you may need to move/copy these into
> corresponding locations under /usr/local/texlive/2005/texmf-local or
> something like that.

I copied all these.

However, xelatex still fails to run.

Any further suggestions?

thanks again

S
---------------------------------
Steven Shaviro shaviro at shaviro.com
http://www.shaviro.com
The Pinocchio Theory:
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/
---------------------------------