[XeTeX] Linux setup question (follow up)

[Dennis Drescher]

> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 21:33:44 +0700
> From: Dennis Drescher <dennis_drescher at sil.org>
> Subject: [XeTeX] Linux setup question
> To: xetex at tug.org
> Message-ID: <458949C8.2010008 at sil.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> I've just installed XeTeX on my Ubuntu Edgy system. All seemed to go 
> well but when I try to typeset some of the sample text I get this:
> 
> laptop:~/work/projects/XeTeX/Samples$ xetex FontSamples.tex
> This is XeTeX, Version 3.141592-2.2-0.995 (Web2C 7.5.5)
> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt xetex.fmt
> mktexfmt: no info for format `xetex'.
> I can't find the format file `xetex.fmt'!
> 
> The xetex.fmt file exists in /usr/local/share/texmf/web2c So I'm not 
> sure what the problem is.
> 
> I am new at XeTeX and it has been a long time since I've used TeX in 
> general. If anyone on this list has any idea what I'm doing wrong I 
> would really appreciate knowing. Thanks!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Dennis

Felix wrote:

> Does kpsewhich xetex.fmt return the location of xetex.fmt? I installed XeTeX on
> the same system as yours except that my xetex.fmt is at /var/lib/texmf/web2c/xetex.fmt

That was helpful. kpsewhich showed a bunch of places where it could be 
and /var/lib/texmf/web2c/xetex.fmt was one of them. xetex.fmt did not 
exsist in that location. I pasted a copy there but it didn't make any 
difference. However, I found when I pasted a copy in 
/home/dennis/.texmf-var/web2c everything started working. I guess that's 
where it needs to be.

Daniel wrote:
> 
> Hello.
> 
> I had the same error message on my MacOS system.
> 
> I found this in the archives:
> http://ftp.tug.org/mail-archives/xetex/2005-October/002542.html
> 
> You could apply the same technique?
> 
> Uninstall everything, install TeX then install XeTeX.
> 
> Apart from that I don't know what else to suggest.
> 
> Dan.

The installation on Linux is different. There doesn't seem to be just a 
"TeX" program. But there are lots of variants. The one I am supposed to 
be sure I have is TeTeX. The package installer makes sure everything is 
there and it should work. This time it didn't but I think I have it 
going now. Thanks.


Peter wrote:
> How did you do this? Compile and install yourself? Or did you fetch a  
> ready-made package?

I got it from http://scripts.sil.org/xetex_linux

> You may either have some environment variables *TEX* set in you  
> shell, or you have forgotten to run texhash or maketexlsr. Did you  
> try Felix' recommendation of
> 
> 	kpsewhich xetex.fmt
> 
> on the command line? If this command fails, then xetex'ing a file has  
> fail also. And the reason can be one of the two choices I offered.
> 
> You can run xetex in a debug mode: xetex -kpathsea-debug=<some  
> number>. This number is explained in dvips' manual page. It might  
> help to find the reason why kpathsea fails to locate the FMT file.  
> Ahmm: kpsewhich also has the option -debug=NUM ...

Using kpsewhich as Felix recommended got me going the right direction. 
Thanks for your suggestions as well.

Ralf wrote:
> BTW, how did the file get there? The recommended way to create format
> files is fmtutil-sys, which writes to TEXMFSYSVAR/web2c =
> /var/lib/texmf/web2c. 

I had installed XeTeX on another system before there was a package 
developed for it. Jonathan Kew was helping me at the time and I took 
notes. To create the .fmt file this time I used:

xetex -ini -jobname=xetex \*plain \\input unicode-letters \\dump

Had I read my notes a little closer I would have seen that the xetex.fmt 
file needed to be in /home/dennis/.texmf/web2c/xetex.fmt

So I'm a little red-faced because I had the answer here in my notes all 
the time. However, maybe someone else can learn from this. To sum up, 
if, after installing the XeTeX package on your Linux machine, and it 
cannot find the xetex.fmt file the solution is:

1) Create the xetex.fmt file with:

xetex -ini -jobname=xetex \*plain \\input unicode-letters \\dump

2) Copy the newly created xetex.fmt file to:

/home/(myhome)/.texmf/web2c/xetex.fmt

That should get you going. At least it did me.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Regards,

Dennis