[XeTeX] texlive and xetex

[Vladimir Lomov]

Hello,
** C. Scott Ananian [2014-01-14 16:47:38 -0500]:

> Please let's not talk about linux distributions.  Most of what you say is wrong.

It depends on your experience. At first, I wanted to give you links to
official documentation that would clarify situation a bit but
surprisingly I didn't find any clear and definite explanation in
official documentation on TeX Live pages (tug.org/texlive).

> TexLive releases once a year.

That is correct.

> So does Ubuntu.  There is an effort to synchronize, so as a result a
> given ubuntu release almost always contains the 'latest' texlive
> release.

And this seems to be correct but there are subtleties.

> Further, the whole point of the apt-get system is that you can do
> 'rolling' releases.  I run debian/unstable, so I always have the
> latest texlive bits.

I seriously doubt, I switched long ago from Slackware to Ubuntu but just
for a while, the reason was that I wanted "the bleeding edge", even for
TeX Live provided by distribution, so now I use Archlinux and my
distribution provides "latest" version of TeX Live, but I still use TeX
Live distribution from TUG.

Why? Because of these subtleties: TeX Live consists not only from binary
programs but a huge number of different packages, 'packages' in terms of
TeX world. Yes, the binaries are NOT updated between releases (AFAIR
there were some 'official' information that they shouldn't, but
sometimes they are updated too), but packages ARE updated continuosly,
authors upload them on CTAN, see for example archive of 'ctan-ann'
mailing list
https://lists.dante.de/mailman/listinfo/ctan-ann
or front page of TUG (www.tug.org, "Latest CTAN updates"), from which
they are taken into (vanilla) TeX Live and these updates are meant in
sec. 3.4.3 of TeX Live Guide
http://tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html#x1-330003.4.3

> If you are using a long term stable release, you have specifically
> elected to freeze your packages and only get security updates.  That's
> your choice.

> Yes, I'm not getting them my tex bits straight from CTAN, but the
> distro packagers are pretty on-the-ball.  Let's not insult them
> unnecessarily.

And I don't think anyone did this, even unintentionally. I think the
only purpose was to remark that there is (big) difference between TeX
Live provided by Linux distribution and vanilla TeX Live provided by
TUG. The last one uses tlmgr to manage installation, and as it is said
on page http://tug.org/texlive/distro.html

  System distributions all have their own packaging systems, so tlmgr is
  not used for TeX-related package updates by any distro that we know
  of.

so anyone that uses (vanilla) TeX Live can get any updates by means of
tlmgr tool, simply running
$ tlmgl update --self --all
or
$ sudo tlmgr --self --all
depending how was (vanilla) TeX Live installed (as normal user or as
administrator, for example through sudo).

While TeX Live installed by Linux distribution package manager, like
apt-get, will get updates for packages, in terms of distribution,
occasionally or on some schedule.

>  --scott

> ps. see http://www.tug.org/texlive/distro.html if you have further questions.

---
WBR, Vladimir Lomov

-- 
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
		-- Alexander Pope