David Hewitt wrote:
Do you have MikTeX set to automatically download missing classes? I
think a hang at that point is usually MikTeX trying to download mwrep
(or whatever class you're stuck on) and either not getting a 'Net
connection or beating on a server that's on a lunch break. IMHO best
practice is to switch MikTeX to the skip missing classes option before
doing an install or reconfigure.
Since it was a fresh install, I had not set anything in the MikTeX interface
itself, but I do think I clicked 'Yes' for the
install-missing-packages-on-the-fly option during the installer. I'm curious
to hear whether Uwe agrees that setting that to No initially is a best
practice. It would be nice if the installer could just time out on sleepy
servers for certain packages, so as not to worry nit-picky users like me.
The MikTeX setting is the proverbial two-edged sword. LyX *needs*
certain LaTeX packages to be installed, and if the basic MikTeX set that
Uwe bundles in lacks some of them and you tell MikTeX to punt missing
packages, bad things may happen down the road. On the other hand, LyX
looks for a *lot* of packages (many of which I am happy to report I will
not use in this lifetime, and likely not in my next few lifetimes), and
downloading all those is painful even if your connection is ok and the
repository you're using is not slammed. I can get away with the punt
setting because I already have all the key packages installed, but for
someone doing a first-time MikTeX installation automatically punting
might not in fact be such a good idea.
The other approach, which I've used, is to set MikTeX to ask before
downloading. Then be prepared to press the 'N' key over and over as
MikTeX asks you whether you want to download the document class created
by the Journal of Entomological Banking Practices or the package that
allows you to create smiley faces in Sanskrit. The good news there is
that you can manage the download process (and also tell when MikTeX is
hanging). The bad news is carpal tunnel syndrome.
As far as whether you need to be concerned, I don't think so (assuming
LyX is behaving itself). If in doubt, you can always set MikTeX as
above and reconfigure.
So by the time LyX gets to that long scroll window during install, all it's
doing is maintenance and configuration type work, and not critical
installation stuff? In other words, Running configure from within LyX does
the same thing?
Critical is in the eye of the beholder, but yes, AFAIK once you're
seeing stuff scroll, that's the configuration script, and it's the same
script that Tools -> Reconfigure runs. By the time you've gotten there,
all the software bits have been installed, but the local configuration
files (including the all-important textclass.lst) haven't been generated
yet (that's what the script does). So if the script blows up, you've
got a version of LyX that won't run without a reconfigure (but hopefully
will at least start, although there have been blown installation
instances where it wouldn't even launch).
/Paul
