[tex-live] TL production

[Petr Olsak]

On Sat, 15 Mar 2003, Staszek Wawrykiewicz wrote:

> I would like to know which decission was really accepted for the TL8 release:
> 1. DVD (full, unpacked TL+CTAN);
> 2. one TL CD ROM with all things compressed;
> 3. both 1. and 2. distributed in one cover.
>
> I investigated personally many people and also GUST mailing list,
> and the resulting opinions was:
> 1. DVD equiped machines are very rare yet;
> 2. CD as only instalable medium is hardly acceptable as `live' release:
>   a) running directly off the CD is quite impossible (we forgot the fact,
>      that TL CD can be also mounted and sourced temporarily for the
>      already existing installation),
>   b) finding/browsing particular macro file or documentation is heavy.
>      Many users liked that feature.
> I cannot ignore such opinions, and as I always try to see BLU's view,
> instead of the Vizzard's one, I'd like to know the opinions from other
> LUG members. Have they also been investigated in that regard?

I did an "opinion poll" in our email-list of Czech and Slovak users.
The results are approximately the same as your results:
DVD device is rare, "Live" part of TeXlive is usable for many users
(but not for all).

Best Regards

Petr Olsak
president of Czech and Slovak TeX Users Group