Tex Live bug reporting

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2021-08-02 at 08:48:41 +0430, Sepideh Eskandarlou wrote:

 > Dear TeX Live maintainers,
 >
 > I would be appreciated if you guide me.
 >
 > I wanted to be built TeX Live ( the version of Tex Live:
 > 'install-tl-20210729' and the version of os: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS) by
 > downloading the script [1], and building a "basic scheme (plain and
 > latex)".
 >
 > But at first, I have a problem with 'dvips'. For instance, I have run
 > 'latex test.tex' ( 'test.tex' is a very simple LaTex document in
 > attachment), but when I wanted to run 'dvips' I got the below error.
 >
 > $ dvips test.dvi
 > This is dvips(k) 5.999 Copyright 2019 Radical Eye Software (
 > www.radicaleye.com)
 > dvips: ! Couldn't find header file: tex.pro

Dear Sepideh,
I'm unable to reproduce your problem.

  $ dvips test.dvi
  This is dvips(k) 2021.1 Copyright 2021 Radical Eye Software (www.radicaleye.com)
  ' TeX output 2021.08.02:2006' -> test.ps
  </xopt/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/dvips/base/tex.pro>
  </xopt/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/dvips/l3backend/l3backend-dvips.pro>
  </xopt/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/dvips/base/texps.pro>
  </xopt/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/dvips/base/special.pro>.
  </xopt/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/fonts/type1/public/amsfonts/cm/cmr10.pfb>[1]

I've installed TL under /xopt instead of /usr/local but it doesn't
matter here.  I don't have any TL related environment variable set.

The strange thing is that it works for you after setting the env vars.
The only difference is that you installed "basic scheme" and I
installed "full scheme".  But if it works for you with the env vars
than all necessary files are present and the problem is not
scheme-related.

 > After fixing 'dvips' problem with the environment variable, then
 > again we have a problem with 'ps2pdf'.

I suppose that this is pure speculation because ps2pdf is part of
Ghostscript which is *not* part of TeX Live (except for Windows).
You can confirm this with

  which ps2pdf

Unless you changed TeX Live's default setup PostScript files created
by TeX Live are always self-contained (all resources included).  These
files can always be converted to PDF by Ghostscript.

 > It seems that the problem is in your installation or something in
 > your environment may be causing the problem. For checking this
 > problem you can find my print environment in 'printenv.txt' in the
 > attachment.

I don't see anything suspicious in your environment except the DVIPS*
variables.  They are not needed.  Please remove them before you
proceed.  TeX Live is portable and all you need is to set up PATH.
But your DVIPS* environment variables contain absolute paths
(beginning with /) to existing files.  With these variables it's
impossible to track down the real problem.

But there is one one thing in your environment which can be the source
of all your trouble:

The installer told you to "add" /usr/local/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux
to PATH.  You appended it but in most cases it's safer to prepend it.

Suppose that you have remnants of on older TL installation on your
system, for instance a partly removed TL provided by Ubuntu.  There
might still exist an executable /usr/bin/dvips but the directory
/usr/share/texmf-dist is removed.  This can't work.  But with your
environment variables /usr/bin/dvips can "steal" files from your
installation at /usr/local/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux.

/usr/local/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux/dvips should find all related
files without the need to set any environment variable.

I recommend to *pre*pend /usr/local/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux to
PATH.  If this doesn't help I'm clueless.

But if it solves your problem, try to cleanup your system.  Remove
all TeX Live packages installed by Ubuntu and tell the package manager
that you want to use the TeX Live distribution you installed yourself
instead of that provided by Ubuntu.

How to do this is described here:

  https://tug.org/texlive/debian.html

The relevant section is "Integrating vanilla TeX Live with Debian".

Once you've installed the equivs package, "apt install" is aware of
your local installation and will not pull in any TL packages even if
they are required by the program you are going to install.

If your system is set up properly and there are no remnants of other
TeX Live installations anymore it shouldn't matter whether TeX Live's
bin directory is prepended or appended to PATH.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
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