Federico Beffa <[email protected]> skribis: > As one example, setting > export TEXINPUTS=~/.guix-profile/share/texmf: > > all the files in the personal profile would be found (on top of the > ones in the central installation configuration files). You can even > specify if you want to make use of files databases (ls-R), or not (and > that for each directory tree individually). See, e.g., > > http://tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html#x1-540007
OK, interesting. > Making the various TeX tools find components (classes, fonts, ...) in > "extra" store locations may be tricky, but making it find them once > installed in a user profile should be easy. > > Maybe finding files in "extra" store directories could be achieved by > making use of variables expansion, something like > "!!/gnu/store//share/texmf" (note the double slash and exclamation > marks), in the central configuration file. (See above document.) > > I think that working out the proper way to install it on Guix may be > tricky, but, given the flexibility, a good hierarchical solution > should be possible. IMO the ideal would have to have it split into a bunch of packages or package outputs, like “core”, “doc”, “extra.” Ideally, users could choose to install 1, 2, or 3 of these and things would just work. I’m not really knowledgeable but that seemed extremely difficult to achieve (Andreas might want to share his sufferings ;-)). Part of the reason is that there’s no simple search path mechanism, and instead something sophisticated that includes texmf.cnf and a couple of libraries and commands to deal with search paths. The latter prevents the addition of a “doc” output, for instance, because the ‘texdoc’ command (in “out”) needs to refer to the “doc” output, and vice versa (there cannot be circular references among outputs of a derivation.) Anyway, I think everyone would love a better solution, so if you have ideas, do not hesitate. :-) Thanks, Ludo’.
