[tex-live] Re: Bizarre perforce situation

[Thomas Esser]

Hi Gerben,

> >    TEXMF = {$HOMETEXMF,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFMAIN,!!TEXMFDIST}
> 
> This means that you must be a 100% sure that there is nothing in MAIN 
> that can/should be overriden by something in DIST.

I really want to have it *this* way. The specific stuff must override
the more general stuff. If people install new binaries from some source,
very specific stuff ends up in TEXMFMAIN.

> Personally, I do DIST before MAIN and that means that DIST (as well as 
> LOCAL and HOME) are responsible for any overriding of stuff in MAIN. 
> This has worked well for me in the past.
> 
> It is a trade-off but the HOME,LOCAL,DIST,MAIN has worked well for me.

The difference is not only the order inside the TEXMF definition, but
also that you set
  VARTEXMF = $TEXMFLOCAL

I don't and thus, formats and config files maintained by texconfig end
up in TEXMFMAIN in my setup (rather than in TEXMFLOCAL). In other words,
your search order only works because of the VARTEXMF "trick".

I really like it the way that it is set up now. Please, try it out.
I don't think that you will have problems with the new setup. If you
really run into trouble, just let me know and I'll try to find a way
out...

Thomas