Problem changing TEXMFHOME setting

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2023-10-13 at 18:34:37 +0200, Dan via tex-live wrote:

 > Hello,
 > 
 > I want to set the variable TEXMFHOME to a different directory from
 > the default, but I can't manage to do it by means of tlmgr.
 > 
 > I have tried using this command     tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME
 > ~/path/to/tree but it does not work, although it should as far as I
 > understand from reading the documentation
 > (https://www.tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html
 > sections 7.1.1 and 7.1.2).  In short: it sets the value of the
 > variable in a file read before the default conf file, hence it
 > overrides the value set in the default conf file.
 > 
 > I know it does not work because
 >     kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFHOME
 > and
 >     tlmgr conf
 > still show the default value of the TEXMFHOME, not the one I set.
 > 
 > Am I missing something or doing something wrong?
 > 
 > What does work instead is setting the TEXMFHOME as an environment
 > shell variable (bash in my case). The change is inmediately taken
 > into account; it can be checked by running any of the last two
 > commands above.

Hi Dan,
setting TEXMFHOME as an environment variable is a good solution.  
There are other means to change TEXMFHOME but they only make sense if
you have to change many other variables as well.

BTW, tlmgr is a powerful tool and the TeX Live Guide can only scratch
the surface.  You get the complete documentation with

  tlmgr --help

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
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