On 07/09/2018 05:14 PM, Uwe Stöhr wrote: > Am 09.07.2018 um 20:16 schrieb Richard Kimberly Heck: > >> Due to a bug in MiKTeX, installation of LyX 2.3.0 can sometimes >> cause the MiKTeX installation to be corrupted. We highly recommend >> that MiKTeX users update to the latest version *before* installing LyX >> 2.3.0. (If you run into problems, the solution will be to uninstall >> MiKTeX >> and then re-install.) > > Dear LyX colleagues, > > at first apologies for being off so long I had an accident hindering > me to use keyboards. > > I missed of course the recent LyX development. Nevertheless I > explained several times until May why such an announcement breaks the > fundamental understanding I have for the LyXWinInstaller. As I already > wrote, my goal is that everybody is able to get a fully functional LyX > by using the installer. My 70+ year old mother was the first person > reporting me a problem and as consequence I found a big bug in MiKTeX. > That was fixed long ago and with the installer for LyX 2.3.0 my mother > got her LyX repaired. So perfect for me but not for you. Now you tell > people to update MiKTeX. How should they do this? Does my mother know > what MiKTeX is? Of course not. > I visited her recently and told her about. We tried tried to update > MiKTeX on her old PC (where there is still the old MiKTeX from 2017). > At first she failed but also for me running the MiKTeX update service > did not lead to the current MiKTeX (seems to be another bug of the old > MiKTeX setup). So your announcement is not helpful for average users.
My original intention was to include your update code in the official installer along with the brief warning that was discussed previously. Unfortunately, as you just mentioned, the update code does not always work. It failed for me over half the time in my testing. I'd get some mysterious error warning me that MiKTeX would no longer work and telling me to look at the log files and that "hopefully" I'd be able to get MiKTeX working again. That happened even when I already had an up-to-date MiKTeX, in fact. That's not very helpful for average users, either. So, in the end, I decided not to include the update code in the official installer. Not because of some philosophical disagreement, but because there are, indeed, other bugs in MiKTeX, and it seemed to me best for us to do nothing here. But that's a judgement call, and I understand that others may see things differently. > I took always care for average users because experienced users know > how to fix problems in there own by googling, writing mails to the > lists etc. Average users are just users without all the background > knowledge one needs to update e.g. MiKTeX. > I understood that your focus is to please experienced users. Actually, no, that's certainly not my focus, and I don't think it's the focus of the rest of the team, either. The only substantial change I made to the official installer, besides fixing various bugs (such as incorrect URLs for downloading dictionaries), was the one just mentioned. Otherwise, it does the same things it always did. I doubt we'll be making substantial changes going forward, either, though there are discussions to be had about that now that the release is finally done. Riki
