[tex-k] [tex-live] mktexlsr does not include $TEXMFLOCAL when refreshing

[R (Chandra) Chandrasekhar]

George N. White III wrote:

> In general, "root" should only be used when necessary.  It is quite
> practical to administer TL without "root".  Somewhere in the documentation
> it is mentioned that TL should not be installed by "root".    TL binaries
> should not be run by "root".

I had ignored that advice to install TL as a non-root user thinking it 
would not be available system-wide if I did so. Force of habit was the 
other reason, because I had preciously installed the TL 2007 Debian 
packages using sudo. Thanks for your re-iteration.

>> I would appreciate advice on what would be the best option.
> 
> Don't use "root" for TL. Not only does this avoid the complications
> of different paths for su and sudo, it limits the potential damage
> of some bug in the rather complex scripts needed to administer
> TL.   It is very easy to change ownership of the TL directories
> to some ordinary user, so even if you installed using "root",
> you can change to the recommended configuration later.

I have done a recursive change of ownership of all files from the 
$TEXMFMAIN directory downwards so that they are now owned by a non-root 
user.

I can now use tlmgr as myself and in general everything works just as 
well, but with fewer workarounds and surprises, compared to running sudo.

Thank you.

Chandra