Generate all significant recent states of TeX Live

Jonathan Fine jfine2358 at gmail.com
Wed Nov 16 19:40:26 CET 2022


Hi

My present project is to systematically generate all recent significant
states of TeX Live, as experienced by users who regularly update their
systems.

My starting point is the 2022 TeXLive ISO, for which:
$ ls texlive/archive | head -5
12many.doc.r15878.tar.xz
12many.r15878.tar.xz
12many.source.r15878.tar.xz
2up.doc.r55076.tar.xz
2up.r55076.tar.xz

My first task is texmf-dist/tex/latex. I assume (or hope) that the LaTeX
packages in this archive are systematically generated from the SVN
repository by some script, or if not are at least logged somewhere.

I have found Norbert's most helpful pages:
https://www.texlive.info/
https://texlive.info/tlnet-archive/
https://texlive.info/tlnet-archive/2022/11/10/tlnet/archive/ # Sample
listing

What I am at present a bit short of is documentation about how the
texlive/archive directory of packages is created. I was hoping there might
be a script in the (enormous) SVN repository. However, my initial poking
around hasn't turned up much. Places I've looked include:

https://www.tug.org/texlive/doc.html
https://www.tug.org/texlive/doc/tlbuild.html

If anyone here can help with some pointers, links or advice it would be
much appreciated. And I am grateful to Norbert for the information and
resources provided on texlive.info.

As Neils Bohr didn't say: Archives are difficult, particularly when they
record the past.

[Neils Bohr is supposed to have said: Prediction is difficult, particularly
when it involves the future.]

The last two TeX Hour videos give motivation for and some detail about this
archiving project of mine:
https://texhour.github.io/2022/10/27/fun-games-git-fossil/
https://texhour.github.io/2022/11/10/arxiv-access-and-tex-macro-store/

---

In case you're interested, the rest of this message is about tomorrow's TeX
Hour. The topic is "Less is more — micropublishing".

The term “micropublishing” has several meanings. An old use is microfilm
(and for spies the microdot). Today we use it to mean rapidly published
short research communications. Typically, it places new findings directly
into information discovery spaces.

We’re pleased to have Kaveh Bazargan as a special guest. Kaveh runs River
Valley Technologies, who provide technical services and innovation to STEM
publishers.

Date: Thursday 17 November, 6:30 to 7:30pm (UK time).
Details:  https://texhour.github.io/2022/11/17/less-more-micropublish/
Meeting URL: https://texhour.github.io/about/

wishing you happy TeXing

Jonathan
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