[tex-live] binaries 'unification'

Gerben Wierda Gerben.Wierda at rna.nl
Thu Nov 11 08:37:07 CET 2004


> Hi!
>
> i've made a few "unifying" changes in binaries:
>
> 1) the following files were regular scripts, instead of symlinks to
>    "texexec":
>
>   alpha-linux/fdf2tex
>   alpha-linux/pdfcrop
>   powerpc-darwin6.8/mptopdf
>   powerpc-darwin6.8/thumbpdf
>
>    I've make them symlinks to "texexec" as in all other architectures.

In my case, this is how it is submitted by me. See

http://tug.org/i-packages/tex.ii2/tex.16.tar.bz2

which is what I submit to Sebastian or Karl.

>
> 2) Added missing symlinks (which are present in all other
>    architectures and are generated by build, but nevertheless were
>    not submitted):
>
>   i386-freebsd4.10/fdf2tex
>   powerpc-darwin6.8/fdf2tex
>   sparc-solaris2.7/fdf2tex

Again, this is submitted. I have no idea why it is not in.

> The ONLY exception is the powerpc-darwin6.8 directory. It differs from
> other unix directories in the following ways:
>
> 1) it contains the following additional copies of altpdf* script which
>    are not present in other architectures (and are not generated by
>    standard build):
>
>   altpdfcont-de
>   altpdfcont-en
>   altpdfcont-nl
>   altpdflambda
>   altpdfomega
>
> 2) it lacks the file
>
>   altpdfcontext
>
>    which is present in all other directories (and is generated by
>    standard build)

I did not notice that this was teh case. I do a TL build under Mac OS X
10.2.8 which is followed by some fixes, like the ttf2tex and altpdf* which
is added from my local development setup.

> 3) it contains the ttf2tex script (from CTAN:support/ttf2tex ?)
>
> My questions are:
>
> 1) could we please use the same set of altpdf* scripts everywhere?

What I submit is what is in my i-Package. This is based on TL with a few
changes.

> 2) Gerben, could you please consider getting rid of this bunch of
>    scripts (which are copies of each other)

It is weird that these are copies. They should all be symlinks to
altpdftex. It seems that there inclusion in the directories (which I have
never done myself) somehow changes this.

> in favor of having only
>    one script named "altpdf", which will accept the "engine" as it's
>    first argument? E.g. instead of

The problem with that approach is that altpdftex and friends are meant to
be a direct replacement for pdftex and friends.

Hence, you can run
    pdflatex foo
and
    altpdflatex foo

and get the same result only via tex+dvips+distiller.

>   altpdflambda [options and parameters]
>
>    you would use
>
>   altpdf lambda [options and parameters]
>
>    and similar for all other altpdf* scripts.

That is nice too and it is indeed a better interface.

However, I would like to follow whatever TeX does. If all of TeX changes to

    pdfetex lambda ....

I will too ;-)

>    That will allow to avoid silly copies of the same script and having
>    to add/remove the new altpdf* scripts once and for all.
>
> 3) could we please either remove powerpc-darwin6.8/ttf2tex or add it
>    to all other unix directories?

I would say, remove it for now.

G



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