[tex-live] Better ways to find packages and documentation

[Reinhard Kotucha]

Norbert Preining writes:

 > >   Where will I find the various tlpdb files on the installed system?
 > 
 > This is not specified till now. We have not agreed on this for now.

texmf/web2c is supposed to contain system-specific stuff.  Any objections? 
But I think that it is sufficient to have only one file there.
 
 > I would say that on the DVD it will be just in the root of the DVD and
 > named texlive.tlpdb.

I assume that there is a texlive.tlpdb file on the DVD and a
compressed one on the CD and on the server.

The files on the server will be identical to the files on the CD with
the exception that binaries for all supported platforms are provided
on the server.  The tlpdb file on the server will be updated if
necessary (though binaries will be updated only once a year).

 > ANything is still unclear. I would say that the installer creates
 > something like 
 > 	local.tlpdb, or installed.tlpdb, or whatever.

Maybe this name will even change during the install/update process.
What I have in mind is to provide some information what has to be done
before anything is done.  During an update we have to make sure that
this file will not be damaged by a power failure or a broken network
connection.  If this file is damaged, all you can do is to remove TL
and install it from scratch. 

Since the old stuff has to be removed before newer packages can be
installed, the files "remove.tlpdb" and "install.tlpdb" should be
created first.  And after removing and downloading was successful a
file "installed.tlpdb" should be created and "{remove,install}.tlpdb"
should be removed.  After the post-install steps (texhash, updmap) the
file should be renamed to "tl.tlpdb" or something like that.

This makes it easier to recover is something goes wrong.

Actual names of files are not so important at the moment.
 
 > What one COULD imagine is that for category Package and category
 > Documentation we remove the texmf-dist and texmf-doc, resp., prefix.
 > I don't see an immediate advantage, but it is doable.

I don't remember the reason for having texmf and texmf-dist.  It makes
much sense in the repository but on an installed system I don't see
the benefit at the moment.  I suppose that Karl can provide more
information.

Merging texmf-doc/doc into texmf certainly requires to change the
directory structure.  The quick-and-dirty way is to move everything
from texmf-doc/doc/<language> to texmf/doc/tutorials/<language>
because it seems that texmf-doc contains tutorials only.  Can anybody
confirm this?
 
 > > (yes, I know you may be doing that intentionally to make XML look
 > > complicated :)
 > 
 > No, I am not doing this in anyway to make XML look bad whatever. I
 > just have NO NO NO idea about XML, and how to best parse it, etc
 > etc. And I was the one who wrote the stuff. Bad luck for the others
 > ;-) Don't take what I say as an affront, I am just trying to make
 > the best for TeX Live. And it is just simpler for those actually
 > doing the programming to use structured text files than xml.
 > 
 > Even if it is in principle better to use xml, it is still some
 > practical decision about who is programming this stuff. And that is
 > Karl, Reinhard, and me.

As I said in a previous mail, let's keep things as simple as possible.
XML is certainly the best choice if nested data structures have to be
processed.  But we don't need it here.  Norbert's texlive.tlpdb is fine.

Best regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha			              Phone: +49-511-4592165
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