Problems with TeXLive 4 and suggestions for TeXLive 5

Thomas Esser te@informatik.uni-hannover.de
Thu, 27 May 1999 15:00:02 +0200


Let me comment a few of your remarks:

...
>     ln: /usr/local/TeXLive4/bin/i386-linux/pdfmex: File exists
>     ln: /usr/local/TeXLive4/bin/i386-linux/platex: File exists
>
> Either the second "ln" should not be called, or at least the second call should
> be made with "-f" which suppresses the warning.

These messages are caused by my texlinks script. That script tries to
make sure that a command for each format being used is created and that
it uses the right TeX engine. Therefore, it tries to create a symlink
for the format pointing to the engine.

I don't want to unlink anything that is not a symlink, because
otherwise important programs might get lost due to a misconfiguration
in fmtutil.cnf. The "-f" option to ln is not portable to all UNIX
platforms, btw.

TeX Live 4 uses small wrapper scripts instead of symlinks and these
cause the error messages. I think that for TeX Live, texlinks can just
silently skip over exising scripts/binaries and I have just implemented a
"-s" (slient) option for texlinks which the TeX Live version of texconfig
will use.

> This bug has no effect other than those potentially-worrisome messages, I believe.

Right.

> Actually, it tries to do the linking this every time I run texconfig.

Right. texlinks is called each time when texconfig starts.

> ***   attempts to create metapost format when metapost not installed

I have added a check for $TEXMFMAIN/metapost. If the directory does not
exist, texconfig will no longer try to create mem files for metapost.

> I don't even have a user or group 107 on my system.  I bet there is a more
> sensible default such as root:staff.

The files on the CD should have better ownerships (uid and gid 0).

> fontimport's getmode() doesn't work in all cases.  Thomas has a new
> version of the function in the latest teTeX.  I've written some
> extensions which I find invaluable, but Thomas hasn't put them in his
> version (yet?).

Done by now.

> **  texconfig is paging improperly
>
> The last page of output, e.g. when viewing the log file, will whiz by
> without giving the user the opportunity to look at it.  This includes
> the case where the output is less than or equal to one page.

texconfig tries its best. Look at the code:
  <$log eval $PAGER; fix_pager_more

Does your pager clear the screen after presenting the last page without
any keystroke by the user? Do you have any suggestion to the code
in texconfig?

Thanks for your feedback. I'll try to improve the parts which are under
my control.

Thomas