texmf.cnf for BLU

Fabrice Popineau Fabrice.Popineau@supelec.fr
13 Mar 2000 20:38:04 +0100


* Sebastian Rahtz <sebastian.rahtz@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk> writes:

> If I changed that to

>  TEXMFCNF = .:{$VARTEXMF,$SELFAUTOLOC,$SELFAUTODIR,$SELFAUTOPARENT}\
> {,{/share,}/texmf{.local,}/web2c};c;/TeX/texmf/web2c

> then the programs would search whatever was the value of VARTEXMF
> set in the texmf.cnf at compile time, yes? if someone changes
> VARTEXMF at install time, it does not have any effect, because at
> that stage it has not read texmf.cnf.

Yes, you will need to set $VARTEXMF in the environment. The $SELFAUTO*
variables are processed ok because they are in the environment.

> Fabrice's proposal only works because he *does* set some environment
> variables:

> FPTEX = c:\Local\TeX PATH = %FPTEX%\bin\win32;%PATH% TEXMFCNF =
> %FPTEX%\texmf_local\web2c

> and hard-wires in this texmf_local tree.

> I am reluctant to follow this, because by default it forces the
> original and the local trees to be on the same drive. If someone
> wants to install the original on a read-only system, and have local
> configuration on a writeable system, they are screwed unless they
> set environment variables, which we do not want to do.

Yes, this is the drawback. But there is an egg_and_chicken problem
there : you can't say that the location of texmf.cnf is in
... texmf.cnf itself.

I agree that  my setting is  not perfect, but  it is simple enough for
the average windows user who sets this up on his personal machine. The
$TEXMFLOCAL tree  is usually small   compared to $TEXMFMAIN for  those
users. People setting  up this in a network  environment are  bound to
adjust it.

Anyway, all suggestions about what to set up are welcome. My only
requirement is that $TEXMFMAIN is not used, and that it can be erased
and replaced. 

Fabrice