[tex-live] Installing latest TeX Live on Ubuntu

[Axel E. Retif]

On 02/26/2012 05:11 AM, Nickolai Leschov wrote:


> I have trouble installing latest TeX Live on Ubuntu. [...]
>
> I try to follow the instructions "TeX Live and Debian/Ubuntu"
> (http://www.tug.org/texlive/debian.html), section "Integrating vanilla
> TeX Live with Debian". First, how do I install "as root, system-wide"?
> I do "sudo ./install-tl" Is this right? [...]

As you have seen from Zdenek's and George's replies, many (or most) 
Linux users have /usr/local/texlive owned by a normal user; so they 
don't use sudo or become root for installing/updating.

Coming from Mac OS, I follow the opposite way: I use sudo for everything.

Whether you prefer one method or the other, the important thing is what 
Zdenek and George said: you have to set the PATH to the TeXLive 
binaries. As I use sudo to install, and therefore /usr/local/texlive is 
owned by root, I don't set the PATH in ~.bashrc, but system-wide. On 
Ubuntu I do it in /etc/environment. The important thing is to prepend 
the path to the binaries ---that is, it has to come first:

PATH="/usr/local/texlive/2011/bin/x86_64-linux:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games"

You use i386, so you would have to change that last part (x86_64-linux) 
accordingly.

After rebooting,
		which latex

should give you something like

	/usr/local/texlive/2011/bin/x86_64-linux/latex

Now ---it's true that with this method sudo tlmgr update wouldn't work; 
you'll get

	$ sudo tlmgr update --self --all
	sudo: tlmgr: command not found

What I have to do is

	$ sudo su
	[sudo] password for axretif:
	axretif # tlmgr update --self --all
	tlmgr: package repository http://....

Given present day disk capacities, to satisfy dependencies (for example, 
when installing TeXworks or Kile) I just let apt-get or Synaptic to 
install everything they want from Debian TeX distribution and forget 
about it. That's why is *so* important to prepend the path to TeXLive 
binaries, whatever method you choose.


Best

Axel