[tex-live] Re: Packaging TeXlive as Debian packages

[Norbert Preining]

Hi all!

On Mit, 05 Jan 2005, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
> This has been my dream for 3 years now. I almost had it done then,
> but lost my work in a disk crash and got discouraged.

So I will bomb you with questions ;-)

> where scheme-* are virtual Debian packages?

Yes, since they do not contain files by themselves, as in the TL
distribution.

> >Mapping:
> >	bin-XXX		->	tl-XXX-bin 	(standard debian notation)
> >	collection-XXX	->	tl-XXX
> >	lib-XXX		->	tl-lib-XXX	(??)
> >	hyphen-XXX	->	tl-hyphen-XXX
> >	scheme-XXX	->	tl-scheme-XXX
> > 
> >
> I think that in practice we dont have tl-lib-* for Linux

Yes I think too, and this is in fact a good idea.

> One very serious problem which would effect this ever
> reaching "real" Debian is that the source is monolithic.
> Ideally, we'd split the current source tree into separate bits,
> but perhaps thats better left to a later stage.

Not necessarily. It is allowed that several packages are build from ONE
source package (eg all the xfree packages are built from one source
package). Ours contain the source stuff with some scripts.

For the texmf stuff (packages not containing binaries) I don't know
about it. I am not a professional DD, but I can ask around.

> we also need to deal with the Debian conventions. Lets assume
> all the texmf* trees are installed into /usr/share/texlive, but we
> cannot put binaries in /usr/share/texlive/bin/$ARCH, so we'll need
> a texmf.cnf installed (in /etc/texlive, I assume) which the binaries
> will find and does the right thing.

THere are several things more, but these will come only after some time:
- what about debian tex packages (preview-latex etc) installing files
  into /usr/share/texmf
- texmf.cnf: Maybe we can recompile binaries such that in some cases
  (-DDEBIAN) first /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf is searched for?
- more to come.


Best wishes

Norbert

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Norbert Preining <preining AT logic DOT at>         Technische Universität Wien
sip:preining at at43.tuwien.ac.at                             +43 (0) 59966-690018
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