[tex-live] Proposal for a tex-base package

Nelson H. F. Beebe beebe at math.utah.edu
Tue May 17 21:37:23 CEST 2005


Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at> writes on Tue, 17 May 2005
18:55:50 +0200 about a proposal for a tex-base package:

>> ...
>> ATM I would suggest:
>>
>>         /usr/sbin/update-{fmtutil,texmf,updmap}
>>         /etc/texmf/updmap.d/00updmap.cfg
>>         /etc/texmf/texmf.d/*
>>         /etc/texmf/fmt.d/00tetex.cnf
>> ...

Can we please get away from the practice of putting stuff in /usr/sbin
and /etc, in favor of a location like /usr/local/sbin and
/usr/local/share/etc that can be (and at my site, are) shared across
hundreds of machines, and mirrored to dozens of other servers?

Networked computers today are the NORM, not the exception, even in an
increasing number of home computing environments.  It is long past the
time when the notion of one-user == one-machine applies, and software
should be packaged so that it can be installed once per architecture
for binaries, and just once per site for text files, and then run on
all systems belonging to that architecture and installation.


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