Subject: Re: teTeX 3.0 packages imported
To: None <tech-pkg@NetBSD.org>
From: Antoine Reilles <Antoine.Reilles@loria.fr>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 04/06/2005 16:47:36
On Wed, Apr 06, 2005 at 01:28:41PM +0200, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Apr 2005, Antoine Reilles wrote:
> >Why keep the old share/texmf (from teTeX2), when teTeX3 features a 
> >splitted texmf.
> 
> Why not? Right now, the teTeX3* pkgs are modeled after the teTeX 
> distribution, which comes as three files. I have only renamed the pkg 
> names to really match the teTeX distribution (i.e. teTeX3-texmf was 
> formerly (well, is - for teTeX 2) named teTeX-share.

Why not follow the layout the teTeX author propose (in
/usr/pkg/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf and
http://www.tug.org/teTeX/tetex-src/INSTALL or in the tetex manual
http://www.tug.org/teTeX/texmf/doc/tetex/TETEXDOC.pdf page 8) ?

I can imagine they do have good reasons to do that.
The main reason i can find it that it could ease some maintenance efforts, by
providing a clean layout, and also allow to have some updated packages for
things tetex provides (for example, beamer, which evolves rapidly, and could
benefit of it)

> >We could also have a variable like LOCALTEXMF to help packages providing 
> >files
> >for texmf to install in the right place, instead of hardcoding it.
> 
> I guess that one can split up packages differently, but this means a lot 
> of (local) maintenance effort, i.e. time. When need arises and esp. if 
> someone maintains this it can sure be done, but for a first start I don't 
> see immediate need for action. YMMV.

You can count me as interested in helping in this task 

> 
> I've tested only ~50% of the pkgs that needs TeX as dependency in pkgsrc 
> so far, and don't know when to look at the rest, but from the problems 
> I've seen so far, noone can be solved by splitting things differently.
For many packages, splitting will do even worse. Many packages do hardcode
share/texmf/ in the Makefile, so that they will need to be changed. That's why
i propose something like what is done with emacs lisp packages, e.g. a variable
defining where to put stuff, instead of hardcoding.

antoine