[tex-live] Unattended TL install

Reinhard Kotucha reinhard.kotucha at web.de
Sat Aug 25 04:12:56 CEST 2012


On 2012-08-24 at 20:55:16 +0200, Siep Kroonenberg wrote:

 > On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 06:27:56PM +0200, Lars Madsen wrote:
 > > Siep Kroonenberg wrote, On 2012-08-24 18:18:
 > > >On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 05:07:17PM +0200, Lars Madsen wrote:
 > > >>Siep Kroonenberg wrote, On 2012-08-24 15:04:
 > > >>>On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 12:32:14PM +0200, Lars Madsen wrote:
 > > >>>>Lars Madsen wrote, On 2012-08-24 09:49:
 > > >>>>>Karl Berry wrote, On 2012-08-23 23:57:
 > > >>>>.....
 > > >>>>works fine. But no texlive.profile is created
 > > >>>I just tested with a small TL installation, on a non-virtual Dutch
 > > >>>w7 professional with miktex already on the system path. I did get a
 > > >>><root>/tlpkg/texlive.profile
 > > >>>
 > > >>>So this failure is not universal.
 > > >>>
 > > >>did you try one where miktex was already installed?
 > > >
 > > >Fake-installed: Portable miktex with system path pointing to it. I
 > > >did get the warning about tex on the system path which could not be
 > > >overridden in a user install. Miktex was at the end of the system
 > > >path.
 > > >
 > > 
 > > but did you get the texlive.profile file in that case?
 > 
 > Yes.

It definitely has nothing to do with a formerly installed MiKTeX.
texlive.profile is just a dump of variables the installer uses
internally.  If the installer succeeds, the information exists and is
correct.  If the file is not written, the only explanation I can
imagine is that the target directory is not writable.  But on the
other hand the installer creates zillion of files in tlpkg.  Hence
this behavior is not explainable.

Lars, what makes you believe that texlive.profile isn't created?
Whether a file doesn't exists or doesn't appear in directory listings
are two completely different things on Windows.

I installed a cicuit simulator on W7 and created a few files in order
to define simulations.  It worked fine.  But when I tried to run
exactly the same simulations a few weeks later, the program complained
that none of the files I created myself exist.  And indeed, neither
dir (cmd.exe) nor the Exploder displayed them.

At a first glance I thought that the files got lost.  But Emacs in
dired-mode shows them all.  Emacs even allows me to copy/move/delete
these "non-existent" files.  
 
Hence it would be quite helpful to know whether texlive.profile
exists physically.  But you can't use Windows tools in order to find
out whether a file exists or not. 

Another thing I can reproduce on Windows 7 reliably:

  Go to %ProgramFiles% and run 

    zip -r foo.zip foo

The file foo.zip doesn't appear in any directory listing, neither
cmd.exe nor the Exploder displays it.  But it definitely exists.  You
need Emacs in order to access "non-existent" files under Windows.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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