[texhax] which TeX?

[Michael Barr]

The reply below was just what I was looking for.

Thanks, Michael

Michael Barr wrote:
> This is probably not the right forum to ask this question in, but maybe
> someone can point me to a better place.

No, this is the very right place.

> I just got the TeX Live 2011 DVD in the mail. For at least a decade now
> I have used one form or another of MikTeX for Windows. But I noticed
> something called ProTeXt (based on MikTeX) and various other things
> (ConTeXt) on the cover of the disk. I have no idea what all the
> variations are and which one is best for me. Where can I find these
> things out?

Well, none of these have to do with ?TeX? as the program, but they are 
only different ways to bring it to
you: TeX live and MiKTeX are distributions, i.e. packed versions of TeX, 
LaTeX, packages, helper programs
...
Well, none of these have to do with ?TeX? as the program, but they are 
only different ways to bring it to
you: TeX live and MiKTeX are distributions, i.e. packed versions of TeX, 
LaTeX, packages, helper programs
etc. ProTeXt is kind of a meta-distributions that helps you install 
MiKTeX.

ConTeXt is a format, as is LaTeX ? if use LaTeX, you don't have to worry 
about it.

Maybe this document might help you to understand the various *TeX names, 
it is a horrible mess in the names:

http://mirror.ctan.org/info/tex-overview/tex-overview.pdf

cheers
Arno