DOCSLIB.ORG

Tugboat, Volume 26 (2005), No. 3 241 TEX Live for Debian Norbert

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Tugboat, Volume 26 (2005), No. 3 241 TEX Live for Debian Norbert TUGboat, Volume 26 (2005), No. 3 241 TEX Live for Debian file. These files list the contents of the package to- gether with dependencies and any special actions to Norbert Preining be taken at installation time. These packages are Abstract grouped into around 30 so-called collections, which the administrator can select via the normal TEX Live T X Live is a widely used T X distribution incorpo- E E installation procedure. rating most of the free (in the Debian sense) pack- In the course of packaging TEX Live for De- ages from CTAN, and binaries for many different bian, we discussed the possibility of making a single architecture–operating system combinations. Debian package from every tpm. This option was, Debian GNU/Linux is a popular operating sys- however, quickly rejected, as it would have gener- tem distribution based on the Linux kernel, contain- ated more than 1000 new packages. Thus we came ing only free [3] programs. Like most distributions to the conclusion that we would follow the TEX Live of the Linux flavor, Debian has a strong package installation program and generate for each collection managing facility. Since T X Live is not packaged E a Debian package. for any distribution (SuSE, Red Hat, . ), users and Please see [1] for more details and installation system administrators have the choice of either us- instructions beyond the brief descriptions below. ing the TEX system coming with the distribution, or installing TEX Live outside of the normal pack- 3.1 Basic installation age management system. The packages have been included into the experi- It has thus been a longstanding wish to package mental branch of Debian, so system administrators T X Live for Debian, so that system administrators E of Debian GNU/Linux systems can use any Debian can install T X Live like any other Debian package. E mirror. Or, for those who do not want Debian’s ex- This article describes a project in this direction. perimental branch, you can use the Debian TEX Live 1 History repository on tug.org. In this case, to get the files you should add In times past, Sebastian Rahtz had some scripts ready, but unfortunately they were lost in a hard deb http://www.tug.org/texlive/Debian/ pool/ disk crash. In January 2005 the present author pre- deb-src http://www.tug.org/texlive/Debian/ pool/ pared the first proposal on packaging TEX Live for Debian. Within two months we had some scripts to your sources.list file. ready for building Debian packages directly from the After this you can install the package texlive TEX Live source repository. Sebastian Rahtz devel- to get a close approximation of a normal TEX Live oped the scripts further, so that by March 2005 we system (for differences see below). If you prefer a had the first installable Debian packages of TEX Live. smaller installation, the Debian package texlive- In mid-May 2005 I came into contact with Frank latex-recommended is a good start. We recom- Küster, who is responsible for packaging teTEX for mend adding at least texlive-fonts-recommended Debian, and together with the Debian teTEX main- and the needed texlive-lang-* packages for your tainers we developed a common base for the two desired hyphenation patterns. TEX systems on Debian. Out of this grew improved versions of the packaging scripts, and by December 3.2 Further installation we arrived at a state where we could initiate the first At this time, several other Debian packages have upload to the experimental Debian branch. dependencies on only the Debian teTEX packages and do not provide alternative dependencies onto 2 Users’ point of view TEX Live packages. Other packages do provide this From the users’ point of view there is little difference alternative dependency. We hope this issue will be between the original TEX Live distribution and the completely resolved soon. In the meantime, we pro- TEX Live Debian packages. The documentation of vide updates to the affected packages in another TEX Live present in the Debian packages describes repository on the TUG server. To access them, add typical use. Most differences arise only in the system administrators’ perspective, discussed next. deb http://www.tug.org/texlive/Debian/ updpkg/ deb-src http://www.tug.org/texlive/Debian/ updpkg/ 3 System administrators’ point of view to your sources.list file. The list of such updated Standard TEX Live is organized in small units called packages currently includes lyx, pdfjam, muttprint TEX packages, each of which is described by a tpm and around 20 others. 242 TUGboat, Volume 26 (2005), No. 3 4 Differences from TEX Live 4.4 Replaced packages The packaging of TEX Live for Debian has brought Many tpm packages are not included in the TEX Live about some changes due to Debian constraints and Debian packages since there are equivalent and/or paradigms. The interested reader may consult this improved packages available in Debian (e.g. preview, thread [4]. texinfo, cmsuper). As a result, some TEX Live A general guideline to Debian specifics can be collections are not matched by a Debian package found in the Debian TEX Policy [2]. (langarab → arabtex, langcjk → latex-cjk-all, htmlxml → several components). Other collections 4.1 Naming scheme are not included since they should be available as The names of the deb packages roughly correspond independent Debian packages (e.g. graphicstools, to the names of the collections in TEX Live, but ttfutils). have been slightly modified to conform to Debian standards (additional hyphens, country codes for the 5 Call for Developers documentation packages). In the last month developing these packages has been a one-man show. Interested developers are en- 4.2 Location of files couraged to join the TEX Live for Debian develop- As in TEX Live there are several support trees used. ers mailing list of the pkg-texlive-maint project The most important are: at alioth.debian.org [5]. Help is needed! TEXMFDIST = /usr/share/texmf-texlive 6 Closing TEXMFLOCAL = /usr/share/texmf TEXMFSYSCONFIG = /etc/texmf I want to thank Sebastian Rahtz, Karl Berry, and all TEXMFSYSVAR = /var/lib/texmf other TEX Live developers for the incredible amount of work they have put into TEX Live. In addition, 4.3 Configuration Karl Berry and TUG deserve a big thanks for pro- Debian policy states that programs must be config- viding the web space for the Debian packages. From ured via files in /etc, and that changes to the con- the Debian side I want to thank Frank Küster (the figuration must be preserved over upgrades. This teTEX maintainer for Debian) for his permanent ad- led to a slightly different handling of configuration vice and support; without his cooperation, nothing files in the Debian packages of TEX Live and teTEX. would have been achieved. Since TEXMFSYSCONFIG is the /etc/texmf References directory, system administrators can configure the system by making a copy of any file in the main or [1] TEX Live for Debian web site. dist tree and placing it either in TEXMFLOCAL or http://www.tug.org/texlive/debian.html. TEXMFSYSCONFIG. [2] Debian TEX policy. http://people.debian. Some files needed special attention and are han- org/~frank/Debian-TeX-Policy/. dled through a Debian-specific mechanism that al- [3] Debian Free Software Guidelines contained in lows TEX Live or teTEX, add-on packages and lo- the Debian Social Contract. cal administrators to combine their changes. These http://www.debian.org/social_contract. files are the central configuration file texmf.cnf, [4] Discussion thread on the debian-devel the configuration file of formats fmtutil.cnf, the mailing list. http://lists.debian.org/ font configuration file updmap.cfg, and the language debian-devel/2005/11/msg01649.html. configuration file language.dat. [5] T X Live for Debian maintainers mailing list. All of these should not be modified directly, but E http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/ only through files in special subdirectories of /etc: listinfo/pkg-texlive-maint. texmf.cnf in /etc/texmf/texmf.d, fmtutil.cnf in /etc/texmf/fmt.d, and so on. After modifying Norbert Preining and/or adding files in these directories, the com- Università di Siena mands update-texmf, update-fmtutil, update- Pian dei Mantellini, 44 updmap, and update-language, respectively, should 53100 Siena, Italy be run, followed by updmap-sys and/or fmtutil- preining (at) logic.at sys as usual..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Debian Developer's Reference Version 12.0, Released on 2021-09-01
    Debian Developer’s Reference Release 12.0 Developer’s Reference Team 2021-09-01 CONTENTS 1 Scope of This Document 3 2 Applying to Become a Member5 2.1 Getting started..............................................5 2.2 Debian mentors and sponsors......................................6 2.3 Registering as a Debian member.....................................6 3 Debian Developer's Duties 9 3.1 Package Maintainer's Duties.......................................9 3.1.1 Work towards the next stable release............................9 3.1.2 Maintain packages in stable .................................9 3.1.3 Manage release-critical bugs.................................. 10 3.1.4 Coordination with upstream developers............................ 10 3.2 Administrative Duties.......................................... 10 3.2.1 Maintaining your Debian information............................. 11 3.2.2 Maintaining your public key.................................. 11 3.2.3 Voting.............................................. 11 3.2.4 Going on vacation gracefully.................................. 12 3.2.5 Retiring............................................. 12 3.2.6 Returning after retirement................................... 13 4 Resources for Debian Members 15 4.1 Mailing lists............................................... 15 4.1.1 Basic rules for use....................................... 15 4.1.2 Core development mailing lists................................. 15 4.1.3 Special lists........................................... 16 4.1.4 Requesting new
    [Show full text]
  • DE-Tex-FAQ (Vers. 72
    Fragen und Antworten (FAQ) über das Textsatzsystem TEX und DANTE, Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TEX e.V. Bernd Raichle, Rolf Niepraschk und Thomas Hafner Version 72 vom September 2003 Dieser Text enthält häufig gestellte Fragen und passende Antworten zum Textsatzsy- stem TEX und zu DANTE e.V. Er kann über beliebige Medien frei verteilt werden, solange er unverändert bleibt (in- klusive dieses Hinweises). Die Autoren bitten bei Verteilung über gedruckte Medien, über Datenträger wie CD-ROM u. ä. um Zusendung von mindestens drei Belegexem- plaren. Anregungen, Ergänzungen, Kommentare und Bemerkungen zur FAQ senden Sie bit- te per E-Mail an [email protected] 1 Inhalt Inhalt 1 Allgemeines 5 1.1 Über diese FAQ . 5 1.2 CTAN, das ‚Comprehensive TEX Archive Network‘ . 8 1.3 Newsgroups und Diskussionslisten . 10 2 Anwendervereinigungen, Tagungen, Literatur 17 2.1 DANTE e.V. 17 2.2 Anwendervereinigungen . 19 2.3 Tagungen »geändert« .................................... 21 2.4 Literatur »geändert« .................................... 22 3 Textsatzsystem TEX – Übersicht 32 3.1 Grundlegendes . 32 3.2 Welche TEX-Formate gibt es? Was ist LATEX? . 38 3.3 Welche TEX-Weiterentwicklungen gibt es? . 41 4 Textsatzsystem TEX – Bezugsquellen 45 4.1 Wie bekomme ich ein TEX-System? . 45 4.2 TEX-Implementierungen »geändert« ........................... 48 4.3 Editoren, Frontend-/GUI-Programme »geändert« .................... 54 5 TEX, LATEX, Makros etc. (I) 62 5.1 LATEX – Grundlegendes . 62 5.2 LATEX – Probleme beim Umstieg von LATEX 2.09 . 67 5.3 (Silben-)Trennung, Absatz-, Seitenumbruch . 68 5.4 Seitenlayout, Layout allgemein, Kopf- und Fußzeilen »geändert« . 72 6 TEX, LATEX, Makros etc. (II) 79 6.1 Abbildungen und Tafeln .
    [Show full text]
  • Application of Ultimate Debian Database in Debian Pure Blends Harvesting Information About Packages for Specific Work fields
    Application of Ultimate Debian Database in Debian Pure Blends Harvesting information about packages for specific work fields Andreas Tille Debian Conference 9 Cáceres, July 26, 2009 Overview 1 Debian Pure Blends Short introduction Blends features Web tools 2 Ultimate Debian Database Short introduction Advantages of using UDD for Blends 3 Future Planned features for Blends TODO 2 / 22 Rename: CDD § Debian Pure Blends Term Custom Debian Distributions was always misunderstood Main misunderstanding: CDD was regarded as “something else than Debian” even if people were told that it is a concept inside Debian explicitly Dropped the misleading name in favour of a name where you just have to read the docs § Debian Pure Blend (in short Blend): a subset of Debian that is configured to support a particular target group out-of-the-box. 3 / 22 Reminder: Basic goal of Blends Debian > 22.000 packages Users interested in subset Groups of specialised users Easy installation and configuration While Debian stays general support specialists as well No derivative from Debian Basic idea: Do not make a separate distribution but make Debian fit for special purpose instead 4 / 22 Upstream - Debian Developer - User Tie a solid network of Debian developers, upstream developers (“developing experts”) and users Rationale: Experts in this field need help in build system / packaging Upstream anticipates enhancements of build system and security audit Finally support upstream developers to become Debian maintainers Penetrating specific work fields with Linux makes it even more
    [Show full text]
  • Debian's Perl Team from an End-User Perspective
    Getting Perl modules into Debian Debian's Perl team from an end-user perspective Tim Retout 11th September 2010 HantsLUG @ IBM Hursley Tim Retout pkg-perl for users What is the Debian Perl team? Maintain about 2000 Perl packages within Debian Both official Debian Developers and sponsees Around 70-80 committers,1 but most activity from a small core team Also indirectly contributes most of the Perl packages in Debian's derivatives (e.g. Ubuntu). 1http://www.ohloh.net/p/pkg-perl Tim Retout pkg-perl for users Using Perl on Debian How do you install Perl modules? apt-get install libfoo-perl Backports for older releases CPAN for unpackaged modules CPAN (the tool) is configured to play nicely with Debian packages, but does not install packages when satisfying dependencies. Tim Retout pkg-perl for users When a module isn't packaged If the Perl module you need is not available, you have several options: 1 Install it with CPAN, and handle future upgrades yourself. 2 File an RFP (Request for package) bug in Debian.2 3 Build yourself a private Debian package with dh-make-perl, and handle future upgrades yourself. 4 Get involved and contribute it back to Debian! Getting involved is easier than you think. 2http://pkg-perl.alioth.debian.org/howto/RFP.html Tim Retout pkg-perl for users Getting involved - tools The Perl team uses tools to speed up packaging. alioth.debian.org for team management git for most packages http://bugs.debian.org/ Package Entropy Tracker (PET) IRC (#debian-perl on OFTC) Two mailing lists - one for discussion, one to receive automated messages http://pkg-perl.alioth.debian.org/ links to all of these.
    [Show full text]
  • The TEX Live Guide TEX Live 2012
    The TEX Live Guide TEX Live 2012 Karl Berry, editor http://tug.org/texlive/ June 2012 Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 TEX Live and the TEX Collection...............................2 1.2 Operating system support...................................3 1.3 Basic installation of TEX Live.................................3 1.4 Security considerations.....................................3 1.5 Getting help...........................................3 2 Overview of TEX Live4 2.1 The TEX Collection: TEX Live, proTEXt, MacTEX.....................4 2.2 Top level TEX Live directories.................................4 2.3 Overview of the predefined texmf trees............................5 2.4 Extensions to TEX.......................................6 2.5 Other notable programs in TEX Live.............................6 2.6 Fonts in TEX Live.......................................7 3 Installation 7 3.1 Starting the installer......................................7 3.1.1 Unix...........................................7 3.1.2 MacOSX........................................8 3.1.3 Windows........................................8 3.1.4 Cygwin.........................................9 3.1.5 The text installer....................................9 3.1.6 The expert graphical installer.............................9 3.1.7 The simple wizard installer.............................. 10 3.2 Running the installer...................................... 10 3.2.1 Binary systems menu (Unix only).......................... 10 3.2.2 Selecting what is to be installed...........................
    [Show full text]
  • Minimal Steps to Typeset Vietnamese
    Minimal steps to typeset Vietnamese Hàn Thế Thành 14th May 2013 This document tries to answer the question that has been often asked: How can I typeset just a few Vietnamese words in my document, which is in English (or French/German/...)? The answer depends very much on a particular scenario, however I assume that you are in a hurry, you don’t want to bother with issues like how to display and write Vietnamese in your TEX editor. You only have a few Vietnamese words in your LATEX file and you would like to see them properly displayed in your final PDF or PS file. 1. As the very first requirement, you must have some minimal LATEX support for Vietnamese: • Check whether you have VnTEX installed. VnTEX is included in teTEX, MikTEX and TEXLive. • If the above is not the case, try to download and install VnTEX by following the instructions at http://vntex.sf.net/download/vntex. • If you can’t install VnTEX, you must have at least Latin Modern fonts installed. Then download http://vntex.sf.net/download/vntex-support/t5enc.def and put it to the directory where your LATEX file is. • If all the above fails, try to get help from someone else to solve at least one of those issues. 2. Make sure you have package fontenc loaded with T5 encoding. For example, if your document contains European languague(s) only, then you should have a line saying \usepackage[T1,T5]{fontenc} in your preamble. 3. An example how to input Vietnamese words may look like this: {\fontencoding{T5}\selectfont Ti\'\ecircumflex{}ng Vi\d\ecircumflex{}t} which gives the output as Ti¸ng Vi»t.
    [Show full text]
  • A Directory Structure for TEX Files TUG Working Group on a TEX Directory Structure (TWG-TDS) Version 1.1 June 23, 2004
    A Directory Structure for TEX Files TUG Working Group on a TEX Directory Structure (TWG-TDS) version 1.1 June 23, 2004 Copyright c 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004 TEX Users Group. Permission to use, copy, and distribute this document without modification for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that this notice appears in all copies. It is provided “as is” without expressed or implied warranty. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this document under the condi- tions for verbatim copying, provided that the modifications are clearly marked and the document is not represented as the official one. This document is available on any CTAN host (see Appendix D). Please send questions or suggestions by email to [email protected]. We welcome all comments. This is version 1.1. Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 History . 2 1.2 The role of the TDS ................................... 2 1.3 Conventions . 3 2 General 3 2.1 Subdirectory searching . 3 2.2 Rooting the tree . 4 2.3 Local additions . 4 2.4 Duplicate filenames . 5 3 Top-level directories 5 3.1 Macros . 6 3.2 Fonts............................................ 8 3.3 Non-font METAFONT files................................ 10 3.4 METAPOST ........................................ 10 3.5 BIBTEX .......................................... 11 3.6 Scripts . 11 3.7 Documentation . 12 4 Summary 13 4.1 Documentation tree summary . 14 A Unspecified pieces 15 A.1 Portable filenames . 15 B Implementation issues 16 B.1 Adoption of the TDS ................................... 16 B.2 More on subdirectory searching . 17 B.3 Example implementation-specific trees .
    [Show full text]
  • Distributing TEX and Friends Preining Norbert 北陸先端科学技術大学院大学 T E Ieta,Dba Developer Debian Team, Live X ( ,Japan )
    Norbert Preining 北陸先端科学技術大学院大学 (), Japan TEX Live Team, Debian Developer X and friends E , Brussels, Belgium, -- Distributing T Overview I introduction to TEX Live I important configuration files I infrastructure and package hierarchy I packaging paradigma I distribution breakdown I possible problems and warnings I recommendations \long\def\@xargdef#1[#2][#3]#4{% \@ifdefinable#1{% \expandafter\def\expandafter#1\expandafter{% \expandafter \@protected@testopt \expandafter #1% \csname\string#1\endcsname {#3}}% .... But this is not what I am talking about today What is TEX But this is not what I am talking about today What is TEX \long\def\@xargdef#1[#2][#3]#4{% \@ifdefinable#1{% \expandafter\def\expandafter#1\expandafter{% \expandafter \@protected@testopt \expandafter #1% \csname\string#1\endcsname {#3}}% .... What is TEX \long\def\@xargdef#1[#2][#3]#4{% \@ifdefinable#1{% \expandafter\def\expandafter#1\expandafter{% \expandafter \@protected@testopt \expandafter #1% \csname\string#1\endcsname {#3}}% .... But this is not what I am talking about today I th edition, non-free software removed I th edition: Mac OS X support I addition of the -sys scripts I - XeTEX addition, end of teTEX development, TEXworks addition, tlmgr introduction, Karl Berry I - Japanese TEX support (pTEX, upTEX) I updmap goes multi-input file History I late Dutch TEX Users Group, AllTEX CD, working group I Unix-based based on teTEX I first edition, Sebastian Rahtz I - XeTEX addition, end of teTEX development, TEXworks addition, tlmgr introduction, Karl Berry
    [Show full text]
  • A Practical Guide to LATEX Tips and Tricks
    Luca Merciadri A Practical Guide to LATEX Tips and Tricks October 7, 2011 This page intentionally left blank. To all LATEX lovers who gave me the opportunity to learn a new way of not only writing things, but thinking them ...Claudio Beccari, Karl Berry, David Carlisle, Robin Fairbairns, Enrico Gregorio, Stefan Kottwitz, Frank Mittelbach, Martin M¨unch, Heiko Oberdiek, Chris Rowley, Marc van Dongen, Joseph Wright, . This page intentionally left blank. Contents Part I Standard Documents 1 Major Tricks .............................................. 7 1.1 Allowing ............................................... 10 1.1.1 Linebreaks After Comma in Math Mode.............. 10 1.2 Avoiding ............................................... 11 1.2.1 Erroneous Logic Formulae .......................... 11 1.2.2 Erroneous References for Floats ..................... 12 1.3 Counting ............................................... 14 1.3.1 Introduction ...................................... 14 1.3.2 Equations For an Appendix ......................... 16 1.3.3 Examples ........................................ 16 1.3.4 Rows In Tables ................................... 16 1.4 Creating ............................................... 17 1.4.1 Counters ......................................... 17 1.4.2 Enumerate Lists With a Star ....................... 17 1.4.3 Math Math Operators ............................. 18 1.4.4 Math Operators ................................... 19 1.4.5 New Abstract Environments ........................ 20 1.4.6 Quotation Marks Using
    [Show full text]
  • Debian Packaging Tutorial
    Debian Packaging Tutorial Lucas Nussbaum [email protected] version 0.27 – 2021-01-08 Debian Packaging Tutorial 1 / 89 About this tutorial I Goal: tell you what you really need to know about Debian packaging I Modify existing packages I Create your own packages I Interact with the Debian community I Become a Debian power-user I Covers the most important points, but is not complete I You will need to read more documentation I Most of the content also applies to Debian derivative distributions I That includes Ubuntu Debian Packaging Tutorial 2 / 89 Outline 1 Introduction 2 Creating source packages 3 Building and testing packages 4 Practical session 1: modifying the grep package 5 Advanced packaging topics 6 Maintaining packages in Debian 7 Conclusions 8 Additional practical sessions 9 Answers to practical sessions Debian Packaging Tutorial 3 / 89 Outline 1 Introduction 2 Creating source packages 3 Building and testing packages 4 Practical session 1: modifying the grep package 5 Advanced packaging topics 6 Maintaining packages in Debian 7 Conclusions 8 Additional practical sessions 9 Answers to practical sessions Debian Packaging Tutorial 4 / 89 Debian I GNU/Linux distribution I 1st major distro developed “openly in the spirit of GNU” I Non-commercial, built collaboratively by over 1,000 volunteers I 3 main features: I Quality – culture of technical excellence We release when it’s ready I Freedom – devs and users bound by the Social Contract Promoting the culture of Free Software since 1993 I Independence – no (single)
    [Show full text]
  • A Debian Pure Blend for Astronomy and Astrophysics
    The Debian Astro project A Debian Pure Blend for astronomy and astrophysics Ole Streicher [email protected] Zeuthen, 2018-02-13 Ole Streicher (AIP Potsdam) The Debian Astro project Zeuthen, 2018-02-13 1 / 23 Debian GNU/Linux Free Linux based operating system One of the oldest distributions (founded 1993) Free as in \Free Speech" Base: Social Contract; Debian Free Software Guidelines > 50:000 software packages > 1:000 official developers Base for many derivatives: Ubuntu, Mint, ... Current stable version: Debian 9 (Stretch), since June 2017 Ole Streicher (AIP Potsdam) The Debian Astro project Zeuthen, 2018-02-13 2 / 23 The Debian Astro Pure Blend Blended tea: a combination of different kinds of teas to guarantee consistent quality (Wikipedia) Method to organize Debian astronomy packages currently 294 packages, (more in preparation) 19 metapackages Web page, \tasks" pages Handle citations, ASCL entries Completely integrated into Debian (Pure) First release with Debian Stretch (June 2017) Ole Streicher (AIP Potsdam) The Debian Astro project Zeuthen, 2018-02-13 3 / 23 Debian Pure Blends Debian Astro - Astronomy and astrophysics Debian GIS - Geographical Information Systems DebiChem - Chemistry Debian Med - Strong focus on Microbiology NeuroDebian - Neuroscience Debian Science - \Umbrella" blend for sciences Debian Edu - Education of all kind Debian Games, Debian Junior, Debian Multimedia, Hamradio, ... Ole Streicher (AIP Potsdam) The Debian Astro project Zeuthen, 2018-02-13 4 / 23 History of Debian Astro First packages: saoimage (1999), cfitsio
    [Show full text]
  • A Tetex-Based Distribution for Windows
    fpTEX: A teTEX-based Distribution for Windows Fabrice Popineau Sup´elec 2 rue E. Belin F-57070 Metz France [email protected] http://www.ese-metz.fr/~popineau Abstract This paper deals with the ins and outs of porting the widely used teTEX distribu- tion to the Windows environment. The choices made and difficulties experienced are related, a brief description of this huge distribution is given and the future work is sketched out. Motivation Some of the nicest features of emTEX, such as its dvipm previewer, were not available to Windows users. Context. More and more people need to use some Moreover, emT X’s author, Eberhard Mattes, never sort of Microsoft environment, perhaps because of E released his sources. office suite or the like, or because of management At the same time, MiKT X began to mature. staff decisions. Some of the greatest pieces of soft- E Christian Schenk, author of MiKT X, has followed ware have been developed on UNIX (or other oper- E a different way. He has designed a completely new ating system) well before the general availability of Win32-oriented T X distribution. Looking at his Windows. Thus, software such as T X should be E E work, I questioned the usefulness of porting Web2C available on Microsoft operating systems, natively to Win32, but there were some reasons to do so: ported, and compatible with implementations on other operating systems. TEX by itself is largely Compatibility. Having a Windows TEX distribu- platform independent but achieving complete com- tion based on exactly the same files as the UNIX patibility for an entire distribution is better.
    [Show full text]