[tex-k] setting latex2.09

[Julian Gilbey]

On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 01:50:40PM +0300, Alex Degtyarev wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> A friend of mine has to run latex 2.09 on a unix machine (without
> root privilegies). It's summer time, so sysadmins are not available.
> Once again, everything should be done within his home directory.
> Also, it would be nice to retain 2e as well. The guy is computer
> illiterate and I have no access to that machine :( So, I need to send
> him step-by-step instructions. I browsed through the docs and figured
> out more or less what he should do. Can anyone check/correct/complete
> this?

Much better asking this stuff on comp.text.tex.

Why does he have to use latex2.09?  It's completely obsolete.

> (1) unzip latex2.09 to a local dir, say, ~/latex209

Nicer would be ~/texmf/latex209.  If you make this change, make the
corresponding changes later on as well.

> (2) (temporarily) set TEXINPUTS to ~/latex209

You'd better set it to "~/latex209//:", and better still, set
  TEXINPUTS_latex209="~/latex209//:"

Don't forget the colon!!

> (3) run initex lplain 
> (4) place lplain.fmt to another local dir, say, ~/fmt

More commonly ~/texmf/web2c, and rename lplain.fmt as latex209.fmt.

> (5) make an executable link lplain to tex (do I take it right that
> by default web2c will use the format whose name is the exe name?)

Yes; better, though, is to call the link latex209.

> (6) edit startup files to set FMTDIR (to what? I want to retain the
> default dirs as well, but in his current vars there's no FMTDIR) and
> TEXINPUTS_lplain to ~/latex209:$(TEXITNPUTS)

Set
  TEXFORMATS="~/texmf/web2c:"

HTH,

   Julian

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      Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, Queen Mary, Univ. of London
              website: http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~jdg/
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