[tex-live] Not so good experience with TL net install on windows.

[George N. White III]

On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 6:56 PM, Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> wrote:

>    May it come from my Interner connectivity provider, or the mirror I
>    used (ftp.inria.fr/pub/CTAN) ?
>
> Very probably.  It's downloading over 1gb.
>
>    ms-windows popup saying that I had not enough virtual memory, that
>
> It seems there is some VM consumption in the Windows installer, but no
> one has been able to debug it.  On the wild chance that it is related to
> Perl/Tk, next time, you might try the command-line installer (install-tl
> -no-gui) if you are up to it.

Win32 users can do <Ctrl+Alt+Del> and select the task manger.   There is a view
that lists the processes with various statistics (it will probably be
necessary to
add columns -- the default has only a few).   This may show some other program
using CPU or memory (for me is is usually the mcafee AV scanner that
hogs resources).

We don't know what AV software was in use.  In the past there have been
problems with memory for McAfee scanning bzip2 files.

>        Eventually, post install actions failed (was it due to the virtual
>    memory problem ?)
>
> Maybe.  It seems not all the files were installed, either due to the vm
> problem or the download woes.  Not having all the files would cause the
> subsequent failures.

I think the installer will let you know if a file fails to match the stored
md5sum.  Did it create a log file?   With McAfee I often get event log
entries of the form: "taking too long to scan, giving up".

> As Phil said, you might find it more reliable to mirror the directory
> instead of letting tlmgr download it.  Another option is to download the
> .iso or the tarballs.  I haven't written up precise instructions for
> those options, but the readme file in the tlnet directory gives some
> clues.

I've been using mirrors at home and at work.  For me the big advantage is
that I can update the mirrors during off-peak hours when the internet
works much better for me.   I find that European mirrors often work better
during N. Am. evenings, so you might try N. Am mirrors in your morning.
Also, for me the hop count (e.g., from traceroute) is a useful guide to
mirrors that will be more reliable.

> Sorry for the problems and thanks for the report.

When I first tried to use the installer it was quitting early and often
due to failure to get a file.  I've done a few updates via the network
since I finally got a working install, and they have all gone smoothly
(updating binaries for a bunch of architectures, so lots of files).  I
think the timeout and retry settings have been tweaked, and it
probably helps to choose the mirror site carefully.


-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia