[tex-live] Pathological search path for TeXMF.cnf

[Peter Breitenlohner]

On Sat, 14 Mar 2015, Philip Taylor wrote:

>> $SELFAUTOLOC
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/share/texmf-local/web2c
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/share/texmf-dist/web2c
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/share/texmf/web2c
>
> Why might there be a "share" under /bin/win32 ?
>
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/texmf-local/web2c
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/texmf-dist/web2c
>> $SELFAUTOLOC/texmf/web2c
>
> Why might there be a texmf-local/texmf-dist/texmf under /bin/win32
>
>> $SELFAUTODIR
>> $SELFAUTODIR/share/texmf-local/web2c
>> $SELFAUTODIR/share/texmf-dist/web2c
>> $SELFAUTODIR/share/texmf/web2c
>> $SELFAUTODIR/texmf-local/web2c
>
> Why does the configuration assume that there will be a "texmf-local" at
> all, given that the user can specify (e.g.,) /TeX/Live/TeXMF/Local as
> the local equivalent of "texmf-local" at installation time.

Hi Phil,

the same unmodified file texmf.cnf (as it is called on case sensitive file
systems) is used under Unix where all of these paths may exist, e.g.,
   /usr/bin/ for binaries
   /usr/share/texmf-dist/ for architecture independent files
etc

It is even possible to share the files in the texmf-dist/ tree between
different systems, e.g., Windows and Linux or 32-bit and 64-bit!

Regards
Peter