Nikola Lečić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
ni> I'm curious to hear more about your ideas related to this partition of
ni> "full" part: what USE_TEX actually does? Invokes parts of TeXLive
ni> install scripts? For example, if I want to install Omega -- is it one
ni> port or meta-port? -- how the integration happens?
"core" or "full" in USE_TEX specifies the port's dependency in an
easier way, and mainly for TeX-related ports maintainer. Omega will
be a port which has a USE_TEX=foo line, and when you install the
Omega port, necessary (minimum) packages will also be installed by
the line.
ni> (And BTW, what source are you using for your work? 2007 release or
ni> current SVN version?)
Both. Basically I am using the 2007 release and importing bug fixes
from the current SVN repo.
ni> (a) They have so many micro-packages, but as for a lot of software
ni> included, TeXLive behaves like a distro: projects are nearly
ni> independent. For example, TeXLive source can be compiled with ~100
ni> --without-AAAs. Among these AAAs are large projects such as
ni> bibTeX, Aleph/Omega, pdfTeX, pdfeTeX, XeTeX... Can a single separate
ni> port be created for each addition of this kind?
I think it is better to create a separate port for each software, and
it is possible. In print/teTeX-base, dviware (dvipsk and xdvik) is
disabled during the building stage, and print/dvipsk-tetex is used as
a dependency, for example.
ni> (b) Update of independent projects. I shall take XeTeX as example:
ni> XeTeX-0.996 that is included in TeXLive2007 is very old. New devel
ni> version (0.997) exists for a long time and users are very
ni> interested in it because it's very stable and contains some amazing
ni> features (Graphite support, Unicode math typesetting, etc.).
ni>
ni> XeTeX-devel can be compiled against existing TexLive2007, but it
ni> asks for some experience, more than average TeX user has. That's the
ni> space for FreeBSD port: a possibility to have ports such as
ni> print/xetex-devel would be great because some users don't want to
ni> wait 2008 to update it through new TeXLive. This goes for many other
ni> projects which are actively developed. In the case of XeTeX, this
ni> means that we could have:
ni>
ni> print/xetex (TeXLive core rebuilt with --with-xetex)
ni> print/xetex-devel (third-party XeTeX source, with independent
ni> install scripts specially tweaked for
ni> FreeBSD port if necessary)
ni> devel/libgraphite (currently used by XeTeX-devel only, but
ni> usable for many other non-TeX projects,
ni> therefore ported and maintained intependently)
ni>
ni> Of course, these -devel ports would be a challenge for maintainers,
ni> but it would be great to have some kind of infrastructural
ni> relationship between print/BBB (officially in TeXLive) and
ni> BBB-devel ports.
ni>
ni> What do you think about some kind of support like this for replacing
ni> of old parts of "full" part with new versions and how does your
ni> working version behave regarding this?
Yes, replacing a part of TeXLive has to be supported. One of the
reasons why a separate port print/dvipsk-tetex is created is almost
the same. As long as it works correctly, there is no problem that
newer version is installed as a dependency of TeXLive port in the
FreeBSD ports tree, I think.
Although my idea is not fixed yet, in the previously explained
framework, which package is installed can be controlled by using a
knob such as TEX=texlive2007only ("pure TeXLive2007") or TEX=texlive
("TeXLive2007 + updated software"). This knob is for users, not for
port maintainers like USE_TEX.
--
| Hiroki SATO
pgpNutJtbrwPH.pgp
Description: PGP signature
