(Status: 2010-01-15, np&mp)
Status of packages in Debian:
oldstable: TeX Live 2005 (but see below)
stable: TeX Live 2007
testing (hopefully soon) and unstable: TeX Live 2009
Ubuntu:
In Ubuntu there is currently 2007, but we hope they will pull 2009 ASAP.
Here you can find information on the Debian packaging of the TeX live system, but also on how to install a "vanilla" TeX Live on your Debian system.
Please send comments and suggestions to the Debian TeX Task Force: debian-tex-maint@lists.debian.org, (or if you think that is related to an genuine TeX live problem, to the tex-live mailing list).
Please use the Debian Bug Tracking System for reporting bugs of the packages.
For the changes since the last version please see the website of the package QA tracking system texlive-base, texlive-bin, texlive-extra, texlive-lang, texlive-doc.
If you are interested in contributing to this project, please contact the Debian TeX Task Force at debian-tex-maint@lists.debian.org. You can take a look at the svn repository, either on the web or via svn://svn.debian.org/debian-tex/texlive2009 (both for TeX Live 2009, for TeX Live 2007 use texlive-new).
TeX Live 2009 is now in Debian/unstable, and should transit to testing in a few days (2010-01-15).
We recommend using the distribution provided packages, but if you like playing around we provide instructions for installing your own TeX Live 2009 on your Debian system.
Ubuntu currently lacks behind and ships only TeX Live 2007 packages. If you want to try out preliminary packages for 2009, please se these packages.
The Debian TeX Task Force has written two documents on TeX on Debian, available in the tex-common package.
For those not using Debian we provide these pages here, too:
Developers' Documentation: Debian TeX Policy
Sysadmins'/Users' Documentation: TeX on Debian
Talk at the EuroBachoTeX 2007: TeX (Live) on Debian
Some more docs can be found at pkg-tetex.alioth.debian.org, most interesting:
Installation is easy: Just call
apt-get update apt-get install texliveWhich will bring you: texlive-latex-recommended, texlive-fonts-recommended, texlive-latex-base, texlive-base. You can go on and install additional packages (like texlive-latex-extra) and additional languages (like texlive-lang-german) and additional documentation (like texlive-doc-en).
If you want to have a system closely mirroring a TeX Live DVD, you can install the texlive-full packages, which pulls in all packages. At the moment it can only recommend some packages I have updated (see above and below for updpkg), but later on - as soon as all these packages are fixed to work with texlive - thee will be real depends. I.e., do
apt-get install texlive-full
Note that in Debian stable aka lenny there is TeX Live 2007, and in Debian testing/unstable there is TeX Live 2009.
If you need or want to use TeX Live 2009 (with its new package manager, tlmgr) on your Debian system, you need to install it yourself (quick install instructions). Here is some advice in order for your local TeX Live installation to work fine with your Debian system.
In order to tell APT about your locally installed TeX Live, you should build a dummy package using equivs. Here is a mini-howto.
$ aptitude install equivs # as root
mkdir /tmp/tl-equivs && cd /tmp/tl-equivs
equivs-control texlive-local
# edit texlive-local (see below)
$ equivs-build texlive-local
$ dpkg -i texlive-local_2009-1_all.deb # as root
At the step "edit texlive-local", you should change some information in the file, mainly the list of the packages provided by your local TeX Live installation. If you installed scheme-full except collection-texinfo as recommended, the file should look like this example.
For those interested to get TeX Live 2007 on etch we provide (without any guarantees that they are working) packages suitable for etch. All the arch=all packages are exactly those from the Debian/unstable arch.
The texlive-bin packages are available from the backports.org service. Please see the instructions on the backports.org site.
In a nutshell, add
deb http://people.debian.org/~preining/TeX/ tl2007/ deb http://people.debian.org/~preining/TeX/ context/ deb http://people.debian.org/~preining/TeX/ lmodern/for the architecture-independent packages, and
deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports mainfor the texlive-bin packages to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
You have to install the texlive-bin based binary packages once from the etch-backports repository using
apt-get -t etch-backports install texlive-base-bin ...After that updates will be followed automatically.
All the Release files distributed via the TUG TeX live for Debian repository are sign with my private key. If you want to get rid of the warning of your apt-get/aptitude, import my public key into the apt keyring by calling:
wget -qO - http://www.logic.at/people/preining/dsa.asc | apt-key add -The fingerprint of my key is:
14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76 A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
tetex user on Debian can use some of the texlive packages. The dependencies and conflicts are such that a mixture of these packages is possible (within limits, of course).
I would like to thank Frank Küster, Sebastian Rahtz and Karl Berry for supporting me in all the work!
That's it, enjoy it!