[XeTeX] I can't find the format file `xelatex.fmt'!

[maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu]

With the help of responders to my original msg, I managed to get fmtutil
to finally install the xelatex.fmt file.  In case someone else has the
same problem (or I do in the future, and forget how I did it :-)), here's
what worked:

Apparently, it won't build xelatex.fmt until it builds the vanilla
latex.fmt file.  In order to build that file, I had to install not only
latex (from the TeXLive cd), but also approximately a half a bazillion
hyphenation files also from TeXLive (using the language.dat file to figure
out that when the build process complained about not having the cyhyph
file, it meant I needed to install the welsh-hyphenation package--because
'cy' stands for Welsh).

(I could have bypassed the hyphenation installations by commenting out all
the non-English lines in the language.dat file, which I had to do
eventually anyway.)

Once the system latex.fmt file had been build, I could then build the
system xelatex.fmt file--once I commented out all non-English lines in the
language.dat file, as suggested at the SIL website for xetex.

I'm sure there's an easier way to do this.  At least I hope there is.  And
now I'm off to chasing down ucs.sty etc.  Thanks for the help--

   Mike Maxwell
   CASL/ U MD