[tex-live] TeX Live 2010 : odd behaviour after moving to spare system on removable disc

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2011-11-07 at 22:05:55 +0000, Philip TAYLOR wrote:

 > 
 > 
 > Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
 > 
 > > Good!  They usually cause more problems than they solve.  Well, the
 > > question is: Did you set TEXMFLOCAL as an environment variable on your
 > > *old* system
 > 
 > No !  I simply did a standard (for me) install, carrying
 > out my standard customisations at install time; what
 > surprised (and still surprises) me is that I don't
 > seem able to change these customisations retrospectively
 > using TLMGR.
 > 
 > Thank you for your other suggestions, Reinhard : as I have
 > never understood (and perhaps never will) "$SELFAUTOPARENT"
 > (is this a Unix term that is, and should be, meaningless
 > gibberish to the rest of us ?!), I feel on dangerous ground

This is a kpathsea variable and explained in the docs.  Try

  kpsewhich --var-value=SELFAUTOLOC
  kpsewhich --var-value=SELFAUTODIR
  kpsewhich --var-value=SELFAUTOPARENT

They are all relative to the location of the binaries.

 > using it; if I /were/ to risk using it, how would you
 > cast my present "TeXmf.cnf" (which, I discovered retrospectively)
 > /is/ in I:\TeX\Live\2010 but fails to declare itself as such
 > because Windows believes it to be a "SpeedDial" file for which,
 > despite having been told to /always/ shew extensions, and
 > /never/ to hide them, Windows (XP/Pro;SP3) /insists/ on hiding
 > the extension :-(

It doesn't matter what Windows believes, all which matters is that

  kpsewhich texmf.cnf

finds the correct file.

BTW, you can also use Emacs as a file manager.  It always shows the
extensions.  I've put one for Windows on CTAN:
  
  http://ctan.org/tex-archive/support/win32-emacs-auctex

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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