[texhax] Thumbs.db in the MacTex distro??

[Olaf Marzocchi]

Dear everyone,
I reported a small issue (see quoted text, end of this email) to MacTex but it was the wrong place, as I later noticed, so I forward now the issue to you as well.

Please check the presence of “Thumbs.db” files in the final TexLive distro before release, they are useless to every non-Windows user.

Regards,
Olaf Marzocchi



Inizio messaggio inoltrato:

> Da: Richard Koch <koch at math.uoregon.edu>
> Oggetto: Re: [mactex-support] Request from Olaf Marzocchi about Thumbs.db in the MacTex distro??
> Data: 18 maggio 2014 00:25:43 CEST
> A: olaf at marzocchi.net
> Cc: MacTeX Support <mactex-support at tug.org>
> 
> 
> Olaf,
> 
> It may help to know how the TeX Live portion of MacTeX is constructed. When it is time
> to make this piece, I rename /usr/local to /usr/local-temp on my machine. Then I install
> TeX Live from the tlpretest server (see tug.org for details of the pretest). This provides
> a fresh /usr/local containing only the installed final pretest version of TeX Live.
> 
> Then a run a build script which copies /usr/local to a folder named root/usr/local in the
> MacTeX-TeXLive build folder on my machine. Finally I run Apple’s PackageMaker,
> which creates an install package, pointing this program to the “root” folder and saying,
> in essence, “make an install package from this image.”
> 
> A consequence is that the MacTeX version of TeX Live is essentially an exact copy of
> what you’d get by installing TeX Live yourself using the TeX Live install script. This
> install script allows users to set a few items before installing and I set these items
> in a Mac-Friendly way. For example, instead of looking for local extensions in
> 
> 	~/texmf
> 
> TeX Live from MacTeX looks in
> 
> 	~/Library/texmf
> 
> Consequently, the thumb.db files don’t really come from MacTeX, but instead from
> TeX Live. I don’t have easy access to the 2013 version, but we are in the process of
> building MacTeX-2014, so I can easily look at “root” from installing the current
> TeX Live 2014, and the two Thumb.db files exist this year as well. 
> 
> According to Wikipedia, these are “Windows thumbnail cache files.” I don’t have
> a windows machine, but no doubt the authors of those two pieces of documentation
> wrote on a Windows machine, and uploaded their documentation to CTAN, where it was
> picked up by TeX Live.
> 
> Feel free to report this to the TeX Live team, by going to the appropriate spot at http://tug.org.
> Right now the team is pretty busy preparing the new release.
> 
> Dick Koch
> 
> 
> On May 17, 2014, at 11:09 AM, olaf at marzocchi.net wrote:
> 
>> Support requested by: Olaf Marzocchi
>> About:                Thumbs.db in the MacTex distro??
>> Computer:             Hackintosh
>> MacOS X:              10.9.3
>> Installer problem:    no
>> .dmg version date:    
>> .dmg file size:       
>> Downloaded from:      
>> Application problem:  no
>> Which application:    
>> 
>> 
>> Question:
>> 
>> $ mdfind Thumbs.db
>> /usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/doc/latex/latex-course/Graphics/Thumbs.db
>> /usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/doc/latex/pdfwin/Thumbs.db
>> 
>> You left some spurious files around.
>> The files have root:wheel ownership, therefore were placed there by the MacTex installer.
>> 
>> Regards
>> OM
> 

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