[tex-live] t;18 pretest init

Maïeul Rouquette maieul at maieul.net
Tue Apr 18 17:44:29 CEST 2017


Le 18 avr. 2017 à 17:37, Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists at gmail.com> a écrit :

> On 18 April 2017 at 12:04, Maïeul wrote:
>> Le 18.04.17 à 02:17, Richard M. Koch a écrit :
>> 
>>> Folks,
>>> 
>>> The tlpretest site now has mactex-2017.pkg and mactex-basictex-2017.pkg.
>>> 
>>> Note that our support policy has changed. MacTeX now supports the last
>>> three
>>> versions of macOS, exactly the operating systems for which Apple releases
>>> security patches. So mactex-2017 and basictex-2017 require Yosemite,
>>> El Capitan, or Sierra.
>>> 
>>> The TeX Live install script has legacy binaries for older versions of
>>> macOS, supplied by Mojca Miklavec.
>> 
>> Should not be possible to maintain compatibility with older version?
> 
> There still *IS* compatibility.
> 
> We have binaries available for versions down to Mac OS X 10.5, so you
> can easily install TeX Live on an older machine and it should work out
> of the box (the installer is slightly broken today, but it should be
> fixed by tomorrow), even though i386 and ppc might disappear next year
> due to the pressure of C++11 standard that's not really supported in
> the shipped libstdc++ from 2009 and earlier.
> 
> And in fact, if you are still using one of the ancient platforms, we
> would be enormously grateful for testing (in particular on 10.5 ppc
> and i386).
> 
>> Is there a technical reason to break compatibility?
> 
> Yes and no. It's mostly due to heavy workload to make sure that
> binaries compile, install and work properly on:
> 
> - 10.5/ppc
> - 10.5/i386
> - 10.6/i386
> - 10.6/x86_64
> - 10.7
> - 10.8
> - 10.9
> - 10.10
> - 10.11
> - 10.12
> 
> The installation in fact used to be tested on *every single one of
> them*!!!! Now imagine stacking 10 pieces of hardware and installing a
> 4 GB file on each and every one of them. And whenever there was an
> update or a problem, repeat the process, clean up everything and go
> from scratch again.

I understand
> 
> Add to the fact Apple's policy of constantly changing their APIs, so
> that two or even three compatibility versions of each GUI app had to
> be provided. Plus compiled for ppc, i386, on multiple OS versions,
> with different versions of Xcode each, with almost each GUI app having
> its own compatibility matrix. And Apple changing their installer and
> security policy each year.
> 
> You still have all the latest and greatest TeX Live binaries for older
> platforms, you just loose the "one click to install that 4 GB dmg". If
> you need GUIs, you can install an older MacTeX or fetch them. If you
> are on an ancient platform, there's a good chance that those GUIs are
> no longer receiving any updates anyway.

I don't understand: the only problem is the installer, but the binaries will be ready ?
> 
> The other aspect is that users should be encouraged to use a supported
> system if they want a smooth user experience which is why 10.10 has
> been deliberately chosen (even if there was potentially no technical
> reason not to start at 10.9).
> 
> That said, we would welcome any effort to help writing a simple GUI
> installer for Mac (for example in Tcl/Tk or Python/Tk) and bundle it
> as an app.

Unfortunatley, I have only one one configuration
> 
> Mojca




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