[tex-live] Fwd: [OS X TeX] Changing Tex parameters (retry)

Karl Berry karl at freefriends.org
Sat Apr 15 22:48:47 CEST 2006


    It seems that however the limits are set, there will always be
    someone who needs more memory.

Indeed.  Of course the real answer is to avoid hardwired limits at all,
as we knew 20+ years ago, but equally of course that is hard.

    Doesn't it make more sense to set all the variables which can be
    controlled by texmf.cnf to the absolute maximum value (in tex.ch)
    which tex can handle?

The downside is that then more memory is always allocated, even though
99.99% of all jobs will not need it.  Although that's not so important
these days, I'm not sure if the absolute maximums would start to be
noticeable.

    The advantage is that there will be no need to touch this particular
    piece of code in tex.ch in the future anymore.

Changing a number or two every couple of years isn't a problem.  It's
more problematic for the user(s) who need(s) the space now, but in my
experience people who run into these limits are also capable of
following instructions to recompile TeX.

Cheers,
karl


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