[tex-k] Question on upgrading teTeX

[tim@maths.tcd.ie]

I'm running teTeX on a number of machines
under 3 OS's (Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris),
which share the same texmf tree.

I've found upgrading to a newer version of teTeX
quite complicated, because the format files are in the texmf tree.

This means that if one compiles and installs the new version on one machine
it is temporarily out of order on the others.

I suppose what I would like is some simple way
of installing the new version in "test" mode
and then installing it fully if everything is OK.

I can see complicated ways of doing this
(eg setting TEXMFCNF)
but I'm wondering if there is a straightforward way of doing it.

On thinking about it, it seemed to me
that the division into binaries and data
should perhaps be three-fold --
binaries, formats and data;
though I don't see how the formats
could be linked to the particular version of teTeX in use.