[tex-live] asy & texmf v texmf-local

Vladimir Lomov lomov.vl at gmail.com
Fri Aug 27 16:02:41 CEST 2010


** Will Robertson [2010-08-27 16:27:15 +0930]:

> On 27/08/2010, at 7:52 AM, Karl Berry wrote:
> 
>> If you install your own new asymptote, you could put your own new
>> asymptote.sty under TEXMFHOME/tex/latex/asymptote/asymptote.sty.  (Or
>> TEXMF{,SYS}{CONFIG,VAR} -- but none of those seem like good choices.)
>> 
>>    makefile could install asymptote.sty over the top of the TL version
>>    (i.e., replacing it), 
>> 
>> It seems conceptually wrong to me to do this.  Does the asy makefile
>> install the asy binary in .../bin/i386-linux?
> 
> Well, no, but there doesn't seem to be a good system-wide place (hence not TEXMFHOME) in TL to put the asymptote.sty file. Unless 
> 
> !!/usr/local/texlive/2010/texmf/tex///           TEXMF
> !!/usr/local/texlive/2010/../texmf-local/tex///
> 
> were swapped. But since they are in that order by design (and as documented in texmf.cnf), I don't think there's anything we can do about it.
> 
> My proposed solution would be to change the configure script in Asymptote to first check for and use
>     `kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFMAIN`
> then try 
>     `kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFLOCAL`
> and then fall back to the old method of
>     `$prefix/share/texmf/tex/latex`
> but I can't imagine that one works very often :)
> 
> On the other hand, just deleting the TL-installed asymptote.sty isn't too big of a deal, so the current situation is probably fine.
You should choose one of the following:
1. you either use full TL with all it (old, not updated,...) utlities, or
2. compile some utilities by yourself but _remove_ apropriate packages
  from TL.

I choose the second way. Some time ago I tried to live with TL texworks
& asy but also compiled and installed them using my distro utility but
this, of course, failed (bad interactions). So I simply delete
apropriate packages from TL and all works fine.

Note however, that in the second case the responsibility to update
software is on your side. So you have to watch if software you manually
install is updated.

Also consider the following situation: you update asymptote and force it
to put sty file into 'texmf' tree but asy binary to /usr/local/bin .
Then suppose that TL updates asymptote package and overwrites sty file
(not bad because the versions are the same) but then TL
update asymptote again (or you forgot that you also have manually
installed asymptote package) and then you going into trouble: version
mismatch.

-- 
	"You've got to think about tomorrow!"
	"TOMORROW!  I haven't even prepared for *_________yesterday* yet!"



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