Re: [Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
On 2/7/07, Paul Fons wrote: I am a little late it would appear to enter into the discussion on fink's internal tex conflicting with external texs, but I thought I would offer an idea to potentially solve the problem. First, I think that everyone would agree that the (obsolete and discontinued) version of teTeX included with fink is a poor choice for people who use tex for writing. For those who don't require much and for compiling the documentation, teTeX might still be usable, but for anyone with some reasonable demands, it's out of question. On the other hand, teaching fink above every version of TeX that people may use would seem to be a waste of energy as well. Proposal: if fink only needs a rudimentary TeX to typeset documentation, why not 1. require a fink version of tex that is always in the same place on all systems (e.g. binary compatibility) and 2. hide the installation of this tex by placing it off the user's path (e.g. place the tex binaries in a standard location within the fink /sw subtree that only fink knows about? That's possible, although I cannot really imagine the amount of work needed to fix all the packages, so that they will become aware of that change. Although - when I think about it again: if one would set the necessary TeX variables and add the fink's hidden TeX executables to PATH only during installation of new packages (my impression was that most packages need it for compiling documentation, but I may be wrong), that should work, but on the other hand you still have people who would indeed be interested in using those binaries. So you need to have two variants then (one hidden and one visible, depending on user needs.) I noted that it was also suggested to change the path order, but this is a questionable solution and would likely cause lots of problems down the road (a debugging nightmare). As the fink tex solution is really not useful outside of fink, why not try the solution above? I had serious problems if /sw path was at the beginning, I don't experince problems now when I installed fink's teTeX (and moved /sw at the end). In the long term it would surely make sense to integrate TeX Live. I went researching a bit, but there is one big problem: it's size, and I really have no idea how to cope with that. Unless we want to end up with 2GB zip, one should make a fink-specific zip somewhere on CTAN and adapt everything needed for it (research and remove files that are not needed, split contents into multiple packages - the most important would be to create a minimal tree, which would allow compiling the documentation, and a few additions, which could serve as a serious alternative to other distributions). There is still an enormous mount of work that would have to be spent for that if one would want to do it properly (and I still doubt that I could do it better than the current gwTeX, which, after all, is still being somehow-maintaned and updated). One can of course take the whole tree as well, but that wouldn't be the best idea. teTeX, gwTeX, fpTeX ... maintainers probably gave up with a good reason (too much work involved) ... Creating a (fink) package withouth the intention of maintaining it, is probably not worth the time investment, otherwise it will end up like teTeX now - unusable for any serious work. I was thinking about creating a package, but there's too much work involved and I'm not capable of maintaining it. Esp. because gwTeX still does it's best. But there's still something that I don't understand: what exacly does support multiple external TeX distributions mean and why is that a problem? Most packages which need TeX to compile their documentation, need only a working version pdflatex. (I must have missed something, but I don't know what.) Which package needs more than that? (Perhaps XeTeX, but that's another story. One would not want to istall fink's XeTeX over system-tex anyway.) To sum my thoughts up: - I still think that system-tex makes sense until one creates a texlive package (after all, the maintainer of gwTeX has quit after he did a major update of the system, not before it, so the system is still usable) - texlive might be the long-term solution to go for, but it needs a bit of tweaking Mojca - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Fink-users mailing list Fink-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-users
Re: [Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
On Feb 7, 2007, at 7:59 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote: On 2/7/07, Paul Fons wrote: I am a little late it would appear to enter into the discussion on fink's internal tex conflicting with external texs, but I thought I would offer an idea to potentially solve the problem. First, I think that everyone would agree that the (obsolete and discontinued) version of teTeX included with fink is a poor choice for people who use tex for writing. For those who don't require much and for compiling the documentation, teTeX might still be usable, but for anyone with some reasonable demands, it's out of question. On the other hand, teaching fink above every version of TeX that people may use would seem to be a waste of energy as well. Proposal: if fink only needs a rudimentary TeX to typeset documentation, why not 1. require a fink version of tex that is always in the same place on all systems (e.g. binary compatibility) and 2. hide the installation of this tex by placing it off the user's path (e.g. place the tex binaries in a standard location within the fink /sw subtree that only fink knows about? That's possible, although I cannot really imagine the amount of work needed to fix all the packages, so that they will become aware of that change. Although - when I think about it again: if one would set the necessary TeX variables and add the fink's hidden TeX executables to PATH only during installation of new packages (my impression was that most packages need it for compiling documentation, but I may be wrong), that should work, but on the other hand you still have people who would indeed be interested in using those binaries. So you need to have two variants then (one hidden and one visible, depending on user needs.) I noted that it was also suggested to change the path order, but this is a questionable solution and would likely cause lots of problems down the road (a debugging nightmare). As the fink tex solution is really not useful outside of fink, why not try the solution above? I had serious problems if /sw path was at the beginning, I don't experince problems now when I installed fink's teTeX (and moved /sw at the end). In the long term it would surely make sense to integrate TeX Live. I went researching a bit, but there is one big problem: it's size, and I really have no idea how to cope with that. Unless we want to end up with 2GB zip, one should make a fink-specific zip somewhere on CTAN and adapt everything needed for it (research and remove files that are not needed, split contents into multiple packages - the most important would be to create a minimal tree, which would allow compiling the documentation, and a few additions, which could serve as a serious alternative to other distributions). There is still an enormous mount of work that would have to be spent for that if one would want to do it properly (and I still doubt that I could do it better than the current gwTeX, which, after all, is still being somehow-maintaned and updated). One can of course take the whole tree as well, but that wouldn't be the best idea. teTeX, gwTeX, fpTeX ... maintainers probably gave up with a good reason (too much work involved) ... Creating a (fink) package withouth the intention of maintaining it, is probably not worth the time investment, otherwise it will end up like teTeX now - unusable for any serious work. I was thinking about creating a package, but there's too much work involved and I'm not capable of maintaining it. Esp. because gwTeX still does it's best. But there's still something that I don't understand: what exacly does support multiple external TeX distributions mean and why is that a problem? Most packages which need TeX to compile their documentation, need only a working version pdflatex. (I must have missed something, but I don't know what.) Which package needs more than that? (Perhaps XeTeX, but that's another story. One would not want to istall fink's XeTeX over system-tex anyway.) To sum my thoughts up: - I still think that system-tex makes sense until one creates a texlive package (after all, the maintainer of gwTeX has quit after he did a major update of the system, not before it, so the system is still usable) - texlive might be the long-term solution to go for, but it needs a bit of tweaking Mojca Hi, just a quick remark in case drm (the tetex maintainer) should read this and come to the conclusion that nobody appreciates fink's tetex: I've been using fink's tetex almost exclusively for 5 to 6 years and see nothing wrong with it for any reasonable use. I've probably customized it a little, but I rarely ever have to worry about my tex installation because it just works. I'm not trying to say tetex is the only tex you'll ever need - but it's just not accurate to say fink's tetex is unusable. So thank you very much for keeping the tetex package around, drm co! Jens
Re: [Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
Paul Fons wrote: I am a little late it would appear to enter into the discussion on fink's internal tex conflicting with external texs, but I thought I would offer an idea to potentially solve the problem. First, I think that everyone would agree that the (obsolete and discontinued) version of teTeX included with fink is a poor choice for people who use tex for writing. Just to this point: I don't agree at all. I use tex for writing mathematical papers and presentations all the time (and have for more than 20 years). I am using Fink's tetex (plus the Fink packages latex-beamer, altpdftex, texshop). For me it is much more important to have a stable and working system which doesn't force me every few weeks to spend 3 days on adapting my configuration to the latest update, than to be able to follow the latest and greatest fashion of the week. Having said this, I agree that a solution has to be found that resolves the conflict between Fink and the popular TeX installations from gwtex, texlive or mactex. Since the flurry of new TeX offers for the Mac seems to be calming down somewhat, this shouldn't be too hard now. -- Martin - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Fink-users mailing list Fink-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-users
Re: [Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
On 2/7/07, Jens Noeckel wrote: Hi, just a quick remark in case drm (the tetex maintainer) should read this and come to the conclusion that nobody appreciates fink's tetex: I've been using fink's tetex almost exclusively for 5 to 6 years and see nothing wrong with it for any reasonable use. I've probably customized it a little, but I rarely ever have to worry about my tex installation because it just works. I'm not trying to say tetex is the only tex you'll ever need - but it's just not accurate to say fink's tetex is unusable. So thank you very much for keeping the tetex package around, drm co! I'm sorry - I guess that I was slightly too inaccurate. Of course - tetex is and was great stable - used on practially all the linux/unix/mac platforms. If something worked on one computer, it worked on another just as well. I regret it very much that it's not maintained any more - it was really a great piece of software. Now every platform needs its own TeX maintainer which is really bad - and probably with a consequence that tex will work slightly different on different platforms - include different (subsets and/or versions of) packages, different versions of binaries, different defaults and ways to set the distribution etc. I'm really thankful that there is at least TeXLive which is still alive ... But the problem is that teTeX is old. For very basic LaTeX usage (with no advanced packages) that's not a problem at all, but for ConTeXt users it's indeed useless to have the ConTeXt version which is two years old. (For my everyday work I need - and really need - at least the version from November 2006. When I request a new feature or contribute something, I usually get an answer in a few hours, at most two days, and that means that I cannot compile my documents with any older version any more.) Mojca - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Fink-users mailing list Fink-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-users
Re: [Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
On Feb 8, 2007, at 12:59 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote: On 2/7/07, Paul Fons wrote: I am a little late it would appear to enter into the discussion on fink's internal tex conflicting with external texs, but I thought I would offer an idea to potentially solve the problem. First, I think that everyone would agree that the (obsolete and discontinued) version of teTeX included with fink is a poor choice for people who use tex for writing. For those who don't require much and for compiling the documentation, teTeX might still be usable, but for anyone with some reasonable demands, it's out of question. On the other hand, teaching fink above every version of TeX that people may use would seem to be a waste of energy as well. Proposal: if fink only needs a rudimentary TeX to typeset documentation, why not 1. require a fink version of tex that is always in the same place on all systems (e.g. binary compatibility) and 2. hide the installation of this tex by placing it off the user's path (e.g. place the tex binaries in a standard location within the fink /sw subtree that only fink knows about? That's possible, although I cannot really imagine the amount of work needed to fix all the packages, so that they will become aware of that change. Although - when I think about it again: if one would set the necessary TeX variables and add the fink's hidden TeX executables to PATH only during installation of new packages (my impression was that most packages need it for compiling documentation, but I may be wrong), that should work, but on the other hand you still have people who would indeed be interested in using those binaries. So you need to have two variants then (one hidden and one visible, depending on user needs.) I noted that it was also suggested to change the path order, but this is a questionable solution and would likely cause lots of problems down the road (a debugging nightmare). As the fink tex solution is really not useful outside of fink, why not try the solution above? I had serious problems if /sw path was at the beginning, I don't experince problems now when I installed fink's teTeX (and moved /sw at the end). More thoughts on latex and fink. I was trying to be careful about being dismissive of the quality of teTeX and thought that message got through fairly well in my original post. Having said that having teTeX on the search path is potentially going to cause lots of problems in the future for those who need to use a more modern distribution of TeX. I think fink *does* belong first on the search path and for such a major thing as TeX, fink shouldn't break multiple users setups by insisting on installing an outdated, unmaintained version of TeX in a outside accessible manner unless it is specifically requested to. As such, I would propose a simple elaboration on my initial suggestion. 1. Install a locally accessible (e.g. not on the exported search path) version of teTeX. Packages that need to use TeX for building of documentation can use this. This would avoid breaking TeX installations outside of fink. 2. Retain the current package so that users who have only small TeX needs can use the internal TeX -- e.g. this would simply put a symbolic link in place to the hidden teTeX. I am a little frustrated now that packages such as gnuplot (which is a very useful package -- thank you) require installation of an problem causing TeX package that is only required for internal documentation generation. I don't think moving fink's position on the path list is a good idea as it will only cause problems with incompatible versions of things interacting -- e.g. it will lead to the exact problems that fink was created to address! I would agree that the size of the teTeX distribution is not significant and that it is fine to install it so long as it is not exported (I wish this were true of TeXLive). In my view, the whole point of fink is to create an environment which runs many potentially interacting programs with little maintenance. With the sole exception of TeX, there is little reason not to use fink's version of a given application, but TeX is an obvious exception. We should find a way to allow use of an outside TeX without having to break fink (e.g. moving the path position around is an excellent way to potentially cause problems). - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Fink-users mailing list Fink-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-users
Re: [Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
On Feb 7, 2007, at 10:38 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote: On 2/7/07, Jens Noeckel wrote: Hi, just a quick remark in case drm (the tetex maintainer) should read this and come to the conclusion that nobody appreciates fink's tetex: I've been using fink's tetex almost exclusively for 5 to 6 years and see nothing wrong with it for any reasonable use. I've probably customized it a little, but I rarely ever have to worry about my tex installation because it just works. I'm not trying to say tetex is the only tex you'll ever need - but it's just not accurate to say fink's tetex is unusable. So thank you very much for keeping the tetex package around, drm co! I'm sorry - I guess that I was slightly too inaccurate. Of course - tetex is and was great stable - used on practially all the linux/unix/mac platforms. If something worked on one computer, it worked on another just as well. I regret it very much that it's not maintained any more - it was really a great piece of software. Now every platform needs its own TeX maintainer which is really bad - and probably with a consequence that tex will work slightly different on different platforms - include different (subsets and/or versions of) packages, different versions of binaries, different defaults and ways to set the distribution etc. I'm really thankful that there is at least TeXLive which is still alive ... But the problem is that teTeX is old. For very basic LaTeX usage (with no advanced packages) that's not a problem at all, but for ConTeXt users it's indeed useless to have the ConTeXt version which is two years old. (For my everyday work I need - and really need - at least the version from November 2006. When I request a new feature or contribute something, I usually get an answer in a few hours, at most two days, and that means that I cannot compile my documents with any older version any more.) Mojca Mojca, I understand that you and other ConTeXt users have a problem. This must be a common problem on many platforms, right? After all, my understanding is that the major linux distributions have also been reluctant to abandon tetex (which, as others have pointed out, is not actually very old is has the advantage of being extremely stable). What are ConTeXt users doing there? -- Dave - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Fink-users mailing list Fink-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-users
Re: [Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
On 2/8/07, Paul Fons wrote: I am a little frustrated now that packages such as gnuplot (which is a very useful package -- thank you) require installation of an problem causing TeX package that is only required for internal documentation generation. Gnuplot developers would wellcome any testers of the new 4.2 version for mac ;) But yes, my first experince with problems with fink was exactly that one. (I somehow managed to install system-tetex though, but it took a while ...) I don't think moving fink's position on the path list is a good idea as it will only cause problems with incompatible versions of things interacting -- e.g. it will lead to the exact problems that fink was created to address! I now have gwTeX's binaries /sw all the rest On 2/8/07, David R. Morrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Feb 7, 2007, at 10:38 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote: On 2/7/07, Jens Noeckel wrote: But the problem is that teTeX is old. For very basic LaTeX usage (with no advanced packages) that's not a problem at all, but for ConTeXt users it's indeed useless to have the ConTeXt version which is two years old. (For my everyday work I need - and really need - at least the version from November 2006. When I request a new feature or contribute something, I usually get an answer in a few hours, at most two days, and that means that I cannot compile my documents with any older version any more.) Mojca Mojca, I understand that you and other ConTeXt users have a problem. This must be a common problem on many platforms, right? MikTeX on windows is pretty up-to-date (newest packages, although binaries may be up to one year old), W32TeX for Windows sometimes updates packages even before official release, gwTeX on Mac is excellent (automatic update of ConTeXt beta within a day), although with a bit unpredictable feature, Debian has already created new packages based on TeXLive. Hans also provides his own (latex-free) minimal distributions. It doesn't necessary work out-of-the box, as LaTeX does, but it's OK. After all, my understanding is that the major linux distributions have also been reluctant to abandon tetex (which, as others have pointed out, is not actually very old is has the advantage of being extremely stable). True. What are ConTeXt users doing there? Everything that can be printed (not necessary on paper), published as PDF or used for a presentation ... The major difference with LaTeX is the ease of manipulation with layout. But to answer both at the same time (sorry for being slightly off-topic): This is what ConTeXt users are doing with gnuplot: http://dl.contextgarden.net/misc/enhancedtext.pdf in contrast to the default gnuplot behaviour: http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_4.3/enhancedtext.html But it seems that addons which enable that will have to wait for another couple of years - they're a bit reluctant to add new things :( There's always a price one has to pay in exchange for stability. Mojca - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Fink-users mailing list Fink-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-users
[Fink-users] gwTeX and TeXLive problem
I am a little late it would appear to enter into the discussion on fink's internal tex conflicting with external texs, but I thought I would offer an idea to potentially solve the problem. First, I think that everyone would agree that the (obsolete and discontinued) version of teTeX included with fink is a poor choice for people who use tex for writing. On the other hand, teaching fink above every version of TeX that people may use would seem to be a waste of energy as well. Proposal: if fink only needs a rudimentary TeX to typeset documentation, why not 1. require a fink version of tex that is always in the same place on all systems (e.g. binary compatibility) and 2. hide the installation of this tex by placing it off the user's path (e.g. place the tex binaries in a standard location within the fink /sw subtree that only fink knows about? I noted that it was also suggested to change the path order, but this is a questionable solution and would likely cause lots of problems down the road (a debugging nightmare). As the fink tex solution is really not useful outside of fink, why not try the solution above? - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Fink-users mailing list Fink-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-users
