Hi,
One of these days we have the texlive code freeze and normally we make a
stable snapshot for that so that we have a reference. Keep in mind that
texlive as any distribution makes choices and as a result some files
lack and we don't want surprised. There might even be changes in the way
things are configured. We treat it as an abstraction.
Over the years I have been asked if the installer can install older
versions and the answer is actually "yes" as it's kind of trivial
assuming that we save them. The top line of the install script has the line
LMTXINSTANCE=install-lmtx
and you can change that. As experiment we have:
LMTXINSTANCE=archive-lmtx/2026-02-12
and we can think of a reasonable set, starting with for instance:
LMTXINSTANCE=archive-lmtx/texlive-2026
for those who wants the same as texlive but complete and at the same
time a bit leaner. I only need to figure out how to deal with the files
as currently we use a not so large vm and I don't want to cripple things
(storing, backups, etc). Maybe we don't need long term support not many
snapshots; something we'll discuss wiuth those who need it. We'll also
look into multiple hosts.
In this perspective we need to consider what platforms to preserve, like
win64
linux-64
osx-arm64
aarch64
as I suppose by now no one is on 32 bit or apple intel. I'm not sure
about the bsd's but i guess users of these platforms know how to compile
or can preserve copies.
In the process of getting away from big tech (hard- and software) at
some point we might make codeberg the primary repository instead of
github. We also want to pay more attention to generic arm machines.
Currently we're experimenting with the RPI 500+ which has good price
performance ratio and context is on the average fast enough for it. Of
course we need to keep an eye on optimal compilation, processors and
performance (so far no problems and quite okay).
Also this year we will try to make a better split in manuals as mkii is
now even deeper frozen and mkiv becomes deep frozen. Some manuals might
become more mkxl-ish and we can archive older versions. We still
occasionally compile a document with pdftex just to check for issues, we
also use mkiv as reference test for luatex (in that perspective we also
need some generic code for testing with plain). Apart from that we just
assume that context users use lmtx (luametatex + mkxl).
So far,
Hans
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Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl
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