[XeTeX] Usage problem

[Axel E. Retif]

Ali,

> Hi all
> Sorry, if my question is elementary. I have successfully installed  
> XeTeX on my Linux machine. I use Redhat Linux 9 and I have TeTeX  
> and LaTeX previously installed. When use XeTeX, I get the following  
> error:
>
> I can't find the format file `xetex.fmt'!

I've seen no reply to your question. Have you managed to solve your  
problem?

I might not be of much help, since I use mostly Mac, and the little I  
know about TeX on Linux is from Ubuntu, where I uninstalled teTeX and  
installed TeXLive 2007:

http://www.tug.org/texlive/

teTeX is old, and Thomas Esser himself suggested people using his  
distribution to move to TeXLive. Unfortunately, many Linux  
distributions still distribute teTeX (updated by them?). Debian  
distributes TeXLive... 2005, and we are approaching 2008 release date!

So ---I don't know if there might be some incompatibility with your  
TeX distro and XeTeX. You could try to see if your system is finding  
xetex.fmt:

kpsewhich xetex.fmt

Does it? On my Mac, I installed the new XeTeX release from

http://scripts.sil.org/svn-view/xetex/TRUNK

and kpsewhich xetex.fmt gives me

/usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf-var/web2c/xetex/xetex.fmt

With more data about your distribution and if kpsewhich is finding  
your formats some people of this list might be able to help you.

Best,

Axel