Thanks a lot for all your feedback, I wasn't aware of many of these things, so it's a pleasure to learn more.
Michael On 09/19/2011 02:15 AM, Michael Ekstrand wrote: > On 09/18/2011 11:24 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote: >> On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 15:20, Michael Smith wrote: >>> All, >>> >>> Recently the following idea was suggested on the Fedora Forum. To >>> quote: >>> >>> "Am I the only one who thinks this is the wrong way to package TeX >>> Live >> >> Maybe not the only one, but *packaging tlmgr* is the wrong way for >> any linux distribution in my opinion. >> >> (Keep in mind that the author of tlmgr is himself a mantainer of TeX >> Live packages for Debian and he wrote another few thousands of lines >> of code for TeX Live packaging of Debian. The distribution itself >> doesn't use tlmgr at all.) >> >> Just a few reasons why you don't want to package just tlmgr: >> >> - anyone who wants to use tlmgr and the latest packages is free to >> install TeX Live manually >> >> - when TeX Live 2012 will be released, repositories for TeX Live >> 2011 will be removed (there is only an archive left on a single >> server, but that one doesn't include the latest version of packages) >> >> - this means that Fedora would have to create its own package >> repositories, unless you want your tlmgr package to become obsolete >> before FC 15(?) is even released (imagine that Fedora gets released >> and two months later repositories are removed from CTAN servers) >> >> - repositories only provide the latest version of each package; it >> is basically impossible to install original version and packages >> from "frozen" 2011 release (the only way to do so is to fetch the >> huge tgz, checkout SVN or fetch iso image, but in either case you >> don't really get the comfort of tlmgr) >> >> - original TeX Live gets some testing and at least the most nastly >> bugs are usually discovered in time; when packages are updated, >> there is zero checking being done before updates proliferate to TeX >> Live; if author submits a broken package to CTAN, it gets updated in >> TeX Live unconditionally; that usually gets discovered after a few >> days, but in the meantime packages are broken for everyone and there >> is no way to recover (apart from using backups or by manually >> downloading an older version from SVN repository) > > Two more huge advantages to RPM packaging: > > - Having TeXLive content in RPMs allows other software to depend on and > make use of particular TeX packages. > > - Packaging as RPMs allows easy dependency on other software (e.g. > texlive-minted requires python-pygments). This could be partially > achieved by adding PackageKit integration to tlmgr, but that only does > the initial installation and doesn't encode the requirement that as long > as you have the source highlighting package installed you need > python-pygments in a place where it is useful for maintaining the > installation. > > These alone warrant RPM-based distribution in my opinion. > > - Michael > > _______________________________________________ > TeXLive mailing list > TeXLive@linux.cz > http://www.linux.cz/mailman/listinfo/texlive _______________________________________________ TeXLive mailing list TeXLive@linux.cz http://www.linux.cz/mailman/listinfo/texlive
