[tex-live] from source

[gnwiii at gmail.com]

On 7/18/06, djh <henman at it.to-be.co.jp> wrote:
>
> Sorry I've been out of the loop for a while. Need to re-clarify some things

> One reason I was building texlive from source is because I (from some nefarious reason)
> can not download files of more than 20 megabytes or so through the firewall inbetween
> me and the world.

In the long run, the open source community can't overcome all the
barriers created by misguided policies.  Sometimes users have to
remind management that the project is more important than the rules,
and that wthout access to open source tools the project will fail.

> With the Tetex source package, I was able to downloaded it and when it was
> make and make installed it gave a complete system.

What is complete?  TeTeX was a very basic TeX system, TeX Live tried
to support platforms other than unix/linux and include everything that
they are allowed to distribute.

> I get the impression that TexLive can not do this.  Am I wrong?
>
> Or who can I accomplish this?

It has been always been possible to download the TL sources and
compile, but the all-inclusive approach means the base texmf tree is
much larger than for teTeX and that builds may not go as smoothly as
they did for teTeX if yo are on one of the more obscure unix variants
supported by teTeX.

Linux distros provide source packages, often these consist of a base
archive and a set of patches, so it is not that hard to build the
package on other systems.  It remains to be seen how the linux vendors
will deal with the loss of the teTeX distribution -- some may backport
selectively, others may adapt TeX Live. The MikTeX package manager has
been ported to linux, which gives you another means to get updates to
macro packages within teTeX or TeX Live.

If you only need basic TeX, it might be quite practical to simply
update your existing teTeX piecemeal with pdftex and any macro
packages you need.  In the short run some linux distros may take that
approach.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia