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From: Pierre Neidhardt <mail@ambrevar.xyz>
To: Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>
Cc: 27217@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#27217: texlive is too big
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2018 15:11:12 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87imzuswvz.fsf@ambrevar.xyz> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87lgc42b7i.fsf@gmail.com>

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I've dug into this a little deeper (sadly not too much, I don't think I'll have
time to work on this before a while).

Let me summarize the issue: packages can be fetched from two main resources: 

- the TeXlive subversion repository (what we are doing now) which bundles
  everything into a single massive folder.
  
- CTAN which distributes everything as separate packages.

The problem with CTAN is that it's not versioned and there is no "stable" URL
for the packages.

To paraphrase
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/tools/typesetting/tex/texlive/default.nix:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
      # Upstream refuses to distribute stable tarballs,
      # so we host snapshots on IPFS or on our own servers.
      # Common packages should get served from the binary cache anyway.
      # See discussions, e.g. https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/24683
      urlPrefixes = args.urlPrefixes or [
        # A snapshot temporarily hosted by @xeji.
        # TODO: remove when there is a reliable long-term solution
        https://cat3.de/texlive-2018/tlnet/archive

        # TODO: Add second, faster and more reliable snapshot mirror,
        # maybe on one of our project's servers

        # IPFS seeded by the mirror above - this may be quite slow
        https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmT4Z67wXin1Z9DhvqwSSkSZSuu8hT6LgDyMu6CBm9Tb7t/tlnet/archive

        # The canonical source moves quickly and will be broken almost immediately
        http://mirror.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/texlive/tlnet/archive

        # Should be stable for historic, archived releases
        # http://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/historic/systems/texlive/2018/tlnet-final/archive
        # TODO: use this later when 2018 is archived

      ];
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

The core question for us is: "Can we reconstruct a TeXlive package from the
subversion repository?"

Corollary: Was NixOS right to discard the repository as a source for packages?

If we can't reconstruct packages from the subversion repository, then our
current texlive-build-system is not very useful when centered around
texlive-ref.

Nix auto-generates all packages from this file:
http://mirror.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/texlive/tlnet/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb.xz.
This could be our redeemer :)

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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  reply	other threads:[~2018-12-15 14:12 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 37+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-06-03 19:03 bug#27217: texlive is too big Ricardo Wurmus
2017-11-23 20:51 ` bug#27217: break up TeXlive for guix Matt Wette
2018-01-23 13:20 ` bug#27217: texlive is too big Mathieu Lirzin
2018-05-28 12:02   ` Ricardo Wurmus
2018-05-28 11:07 ` Peter Neidhardt
2018-05-28 11:58   ` Ricardo Wurmus
2018-05-28 12:53     ` Peter Neidhardt
2018-12-15 14:11       ` Pierre Neidhardt [this message]
2019-01-10  9:27       ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-01-10  9:49         ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-01-10 12:30           ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-10 12:51             ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-01-10 15:34               ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-10 16:01                 ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-01-10 16:11                   ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-10 17:47                     ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-01-10 18:50                       ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-10 18:56                         ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-01-10 19:01                           ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-10 11:27         ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-10 12:15           ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-01-13 12:21             ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-17  9:36               ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-01-17  9:41                 ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-01-17 10:39                   ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-17 10:43                     ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-01-17 11:01                       ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-03-02 14:13                         ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-03-03 14:32                           ` Jelle Licht
2019-03-05  8:39                             ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-03-16 12:59                               ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-03-18  8:47                                 ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-03-19 21:36                                   ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-03-20  7:47                                     ` Pierre Neidhardt
2019-03-22 21:01                                       ` Ludovic Courtès
2019-01-17 10:36                 ` Ricardo Wurmus
2019-01-15 15:34 ` Ricardo Wurmus

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