Texlive

Texlive

[Andreas Enge]

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Hello,

the attached patch does what its commit message says. It is the fruit of many
trials and discussions with Ludovic. The tricky thing was to link to the
kpsewhich binary in texlive-bin, but to make it take its configuration file
texmf.cnf from texlive-data. I ended up wrapping all binaries and providing
them with the suitable value of TEXMFCNF.

The real goal of the patch is to make it easy to create a second package
texlive-small in a second step. This package shall inherit from texlive,
but have as input texlive-texmf-small, which is created as texlive-texmf,
but after deleting a big chunk of data; I would say, all the documentation
and most of the fonts. Such a smaller package could be a native input for
packages creating their documentation from a latex source, for instance.

Andreas


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From 57f19f831c4b5df30b80e58066f0c4f1fd4ac9fb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 22:42:41 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] gnu: texlive: Make the package structure more modular.

* gnu/packages/texlive.scm (texlive-bin, texlive-texmf): New variables.
  The first one contains the binaries; the second one the texmf tree.
  (texlive): Drop output "data". Create the output "out" as the union
  of the suitable subdirectories of texlive-bin and texlive-texmf, and
  wrap the binaries, setting TEXMFCNF to the value corresponding to
  texlive-texmf.
---
 gnu/packages/texlive.scm | 248 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------
 1 file changed, 166 insertions(+), 82 deletions(-)

diff --git a/gnu/packages/texlive.scm b/gnu/packages/texlive.scm
index f757350..a4cb0f9 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/texlive.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/texlive.scm
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 ;;; GNU Guix --- Functional package management for GNU
-;;; Copyright © 2013, 2014 Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>
+;;; Copyright © 2013, 2014, 2015 Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>
 ;;; Copyright © 2014 Eric Bavier <bavier@member.fsf.org>
 ;;; Copyright © 2015 Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>
 ;;;
@@ -23,7 +23,9 @@
   #:use-module (guix packages)
   #:use-module (guix download)
   #:use-module (guix build-system gnu)
+  #:use-module (guix build-system trivial)
   #:use-module (gnu packages)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages bash)
   #:use-module (gnu packages compression)
   #:use-module (gnu packages fontutils)
   #:use-module (gnu packages gd)
@@ -31,6 +33,7 @@
   #:use-module (gnu packages gtk)
   #:use-module (gnu packages icu4c)
   #:use-module (gnu packages image)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages lua)
   #:use-module (gnu packages pdf)
   #:use-module (gnu packages perl)
   #:use-module (gnu packages pkg-config)
@@ -57,54 +60,48 @@
     (sha256 (base32
               "0qsr55ms1278dhmgixs5qqwd4fxhh369ihkki6wgh8xaqm8p48p0"))))
 
-(define-public texlive
+(define-public texlive-bin
   (package
-   (name "texlive")
+   (name "texlive-bin")
    (version "2014")
-   (source (origin
-            (method url-fetch)
-            (uri "ftp://tug.org/historic/systems/texlive/2014/texlive-20140525-source.tar.xz")
-            (sha256 (base32
-                     "1glmaw2jv42grbsn05kay825j66scimjqqc32776bb1356q4xfq8"))))
+   (source
+    (origin
+     (method url-fetch)
+      (uri "ftp://tug.org/historic/systems/texlive/2014/texlive-20140525-source.tar.xz")
+      (sha256 (base32
+               "1glmaw2jv42grbsn05kay825j66scimjqqc32776bb1356q4xfq8"))))
    (build-system gnu-build-system)
-   (inputs `(("texlive-extra-src" ,texlive-extra-src)
-             ("texlive-texmf-src" ,texlive-texmf-src)
-             ("cairo" ,cairo)
-             ("fontconfig" ,fontconfig)
-             ("fontforge" ,fontforge)
-             ("freetype" ,freetype)
-             ("gd" ,gd)
-             ("ghostscript" ,ghostscript)
-             ("graphite2" ,graphite2)
-             ("harfbuzz" ,harfbuzz)
-             ("icu4c" ,icu4c)
-             ("libpaper" ,libpaper)
-             ("libpng" ,libpng)
-             ("libxaw" ,libxaw)
-             ("libxt" ,libxt)
-             ("perl" ,perl)
-             ("pixman" ,pixman)
-             ("poppler" ,poppler)
-             ("potrace" ,potrace)
-             ("python" ,python-2) ; incompatible with Python 3 (print syntax)
-             ("ruby" ,ruby)
-             ("tcsh" ,tcsh)
-             ("teckit" ,teckit)
-             ("zlib" ,zlib)
-             ("zziplib" ,zziplib)))
+   (inputs
+    `(("texlive-extra-src" ,texlive-extra-src)
+      ("cairo" ,cairo)
+      ("fontconfig" ,fontconfig)
+      ("fontforge" ,fontforge)
+      ("freetype" ,freetype)
+      ("gd" ,gd)
+      ("ghostscript" ,ghostscript)
+      ("graphite2" ,graphite2)
+      ("harfbuzz" ,harfbuzz)
+      ("icu4c" ,icu4c)
+      ("libpaper" ,libpaper)
+      ("libpng" ,libpng)
+      ("libxaw" ,libxaw)
+      ("libxt" ,libxt)
+      ("perl" ,perl)
+      ("pixman" ,pixman)
+      ("poppler" ,poppler)
+      ("potrace" ,potrace)
+      ("python" ,python-2) ; incompatible with Python 3 (print syntax)
+      ("ruby" ,ruby)
+      ("tcsh" ,tcsh)
+      ("teckit" ,teckit)
+      ("zlib" ,zlib)
+      ("zziplib" ,zziplib)))
    (native-inputs
     `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)))
-   (outputs '("out" "data"))
    (arguments
     `(#:out-of-source? #t
       #:configure-flags
        `("--disable-native-texlive-build"
-         ;; Although the texmf-dist data is taken from texlive-texmf,
-         ;; setting datarootdir is still useful:
-         ;; "make install" creates symbolic links to scripts in this place.
-         ,(string-append "--datarootdir=" (assoc-ref %outputs "data"))
-         ,(string-append "--infodir=" (assoc-ref %outputs "out") "/share/info")
-         ,(string-append "--mandir=" (assoc-ref %outputs "out") "/share/man")
          "--with-system-cairo"
          "--with-system-freetype2"
          "--with-system-gd"
@@ -124,70 +121,157 @@
 
       ;; Disable tests on mips64 to cope with a failure of luajiterr.test.
       ;; XXX FIXME fix luajit properly on mips64.
-      #:tests? ,(not (string-prefix? "mips64" (or (%current-target-system)
+      #:tests? ,(not (equal? "mips64el-linux" (or (%current-target-system)
                                                   (%current-system))))
       #:phases
        (alist-cons-after
         'install 'postinst
          (lambda* (#:key inputs outputs #:allow-other-keys #:rest args)
-           (let ((texlive-extra (assoc-ref inputs "texlive-extra-src"))
-                 (texlive-texmf (assoc-ref inputs "texlive-texmf-src"))
-                 (out (assoc-ref outputs "out"))
-                 (data (assoc-ref outputs "data"))
-                 (unpack (assoc-ref %standard-phases 'unpack))
-                 (patch-source-shebangs
-                   (assoc-ref %standard-phases 'patch-source-shebangs)))
+           (let* ((out (assoc-ref outputs "out"))
+                  (share (string-append out "/share"))
+                  (texlive-extra (assoc-ref inputs "texlive-extra-src"))
+                  (unpack (assoc-ref %standard-phases 'unpack))
+                  (patch-source-shebangs
+                    (assoc-ref %standard-phases 'patch-source-shebangs)))
              ;; Create symbolic links for the latex variants and their
              ;; man pages.
              (with-directory-excursion (string-append out "/bin/")
                (for-each symlink
                '("pdftex" "pdftex"   "xetex"   "luatex")
                '("latex"  "pdflatex" "xelatex" "lualatex")))
-             (with-directory-excursion (string-append out "/share/man/man1/")
+             (with-directory-excursion (string-append share "/man/man1/")
                (symlink "luatex.1" "lualatex.1"))
-             ;; Delete texmf-dist from "data", since it will be reinstalled
-             ;; from texlive-texmf.
-             (system* "rm" "-r" (string-append data "/texmf-dist"))
              ;; Unpack texlive-extra and install tlpkg.
              (mkdir "texlive-extra")
              (with-directory-excursion "texlive-extra"
                (apply unpack (list #:source texlive-extra))
                (apply patch-source-shebangs (list #:source texlive-extra))
-               (system* "mv" "tlpkg" data)
-               (chdir ".."))
-             ;; Unpack and install texlive-texmf.
-             (mkdir "texlive-texmf")
-             (with-directory-excursion "texlive-texmf"
-               (apply unpack (list #:source texlive-texmf))
-               (apply patch-source-shebangs (list #:source texlive-texmf))
-               ;; Register "data" for kpathsea in texmf.cnf.
-               (substitute* "texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf"
-                 (("TEXMFROOT = \\$SELFAUTOPARENT")
-                 (string-append "TEXMFROOT = " data)))
-               (system* "mv" "texmf-dist" data)
-               (chdir ".."))
-             ;; texmf.cnf must also be placed in "out", since kpsewhich does
-             ;; not know about "data" until it has found this file.
-             (mkdir (string-append out "/share/texmf-dist"))
-             (mkdir (string-append out "/share/texmf-dist/web2c"))
-             (copy-file (string-append data "/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf")
-               (string-append out "/share/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf"))))
-       (alist-cons-after 'patch-shebangs 'texconfig
+               (system* "mv" "tlpkg" share))))
+        %standard-phases)))
+   (synopsis "TeX Live, a package of the TeX typesetting system")
+   (description
+    "TeX Live provides a comprehensive TeX document production system.
+It includes all the major TeX-related programs, macro packages, and fonts
+that are free software, including support for many languages around the
+world.
+
+This package contains the binaries.")
+   (license (license:fsf-free "http://tug.org/texlive/copying.html"))
+   (home-page "http://www.tug.org/texlive/")))
+
+(define-public texlive-texmf
+  (package
+   (name "texlive-texmf")
+   (version "2014")
+   (source texlive-texmf-src)
+   (build-system gnu-build-system)
+   (inputs
+    `(("texlive-bin" ,texlive-bin)
+      ("lua" ,lua)
+      ("perl" ,perl)
+      ("python" ,python-2) ; incompatible with Python 3 (print syntax)
+      ("ruby" ,ruby)
+      ("tcsh" ,tcsh)))
+   (arguments
+    `(#:modules ((guix build gnu-build-system)
+                 (guix build utils)
+                 (srfi srfi-26))
+      #:imported-modules ((guix build gnu-build-system)
+                          (guix build utils))
+      #:phases
+        (alist-cons-before
+         'texmf-config 'install
          (lambda* (#:key outputs #:allow-other-keys)
-           (let ((out (assoc-ref outputs "out")))
-             ;; Configure the texlive system; inspired from
-             ;; http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.37/office/texlive/
-             (setenv "PATH" (string-append (getenv "PATH") ":" out "/bin"))
-             (system* "updmap-sys" "--nohash" "--syncwithtrees")
-             (system* "mktexlsr")
-             (system* "fmtutil-sys" "--all")))
-       %standard-phases))))
-   (synopsis "Tex Live, a package of the TeX typesetting system")
+           (let ((share (string-append (assoc-ref outputs "out") "/share")))
+             (mkdir-p share)
+             (system* "mv" "texmf-dist" share)))
+         (alist-cons-after
+          'patch-source-shebangs 'texmf-config
+          (lambda* (#:key inputs outputs #:allow-other-keys)
+            (let* ((share (string-append (assoc-ref outputs "out") "/share"))
+                   (texmfroot (string-append share "/texmf-dist/web2c"))
+                   (texmfcnf (string-append texmfroot "/texmf.cnf"))
+                   (texbin (string-append (assoc-ref inputs "texlive-bin")
+                            "/bin")))
+              ;; Register SHARE as TEXMFROOT in texmf.cnf.
+              (substitute* texmfcnf
+                (("TEXMFROOT = \\$SELFAUTOPARENT")
+                (string-append "TEXMFROOT = " share)))
+              ;; Configure the texmf-dist tree; inspired from
+              ;; http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.37/office/texlive/
+              (setenv "PATH" (string-append (getenv "PATH") ":" texbin))
+              (setenv "TEXMFCNF" texmfroot)
+              (system* "updmap-sys" "--nohash" "--syncwithtrees")
+              (system* "mktexlsr")
+              (system* "fmtutil-sys" "--all")))
+          (map (cut assq <> %standard-phases)
+               '(set-paths unpack patch-source-shebangs))))))
+   (synopsis "TeX Live, a package of the TeX typesetting system")
    (description
     "TeX Live provides a comprehensive TeX document production system.
 It includes all the major TeX-related programs, macro packages, and fonts
 that are free software, including support for many languages around the
-world.")
+world.
+
+This package contains the complete tree of texmf-dist data.")
+   (license (license:fsf-free "http://tug.org/texlive/copying.html"))
+   (home-page "http://www.tug.org/texlive/")))
+
+(define-public texlive
+  (package
+   (name "texlive")
+   (version "2014")
+   (source #f)
+   (build-system trivial-build-system)
+   (inputs `(("bash" ,bash) ; for wrap-program
+             ("texlive-bin" ,texlive-bin)
+             ("texlive-texmf" ,texlive-texmf)))
+   (arguments
+    `(#:modules ((guix build utils))
+      #:builder
+        ;; Build the union of texlive-bin and texlive-texmf, but take the
+        ;; conflicting subdirectory share/texmf-dist from texlive-texmf.
+        (begin
+          (use-modules (guix build utils))
+          (let ((out (assoc-ref %outputs "out"))
+                (bin (assoc-ref %build-inputs "texlive-bin"))
+                (texmf (assoc-ref %build-inputs "texlive-texmf"))
+                (bash (assoc-ref %build-inputs "bash")))
+               (mkdir out)
+               (with-directory-excursion out
+                 (for-each
+                   (lambda (name)
+                     (symlink (string-append bin "/" name) name))
+                   '("include" "lib"))
+                 (mkdir "bin")
+                 (with-directory-excursion "bin"
+                   (setenv "PATH" (string-append bash "/bin"))
+                   (for-each
+                     (lambda (name)
+                       (symlink name (basename name))
+                       (wrap-program
+                         (basename name)
+                         `("TEXMFCNF" =
+                           (,(string-append texmf "/share/texmf-dist/web2c")))))
+                     (find-files (string-append bin "/bin/") "")))
+                 (mkdir "share")
+                 (with-directory-excursion "share"
+                   (for-each
+                     (lambda (name)
+                       (symlink (string-append bin "/share/" name) name))
+                     '("info" "man" "tlpkg"))
+                   (for-each
+                     (lambda (name)
+                       (symlink (string-append texmf "/share/" name) name))
+                     '("texmf-dist" "texmf-var"))))))))
+   (synopsis "TeX Live, a package of the TeX typesetting system")
+   (description
+    "TeX Live provides a comprehensive TeX document production system.
+It includes all the major TeX-related programs, macro packages, and fonts
+that are free software, including support for many languages around the
+world.
+
+This package contains the complete TeX Live distribution.")
    (license (license:fsf-free "http://tug.org/texlive/copying.html"))
    (home-page "http://www.tug.org/texlive/")))
 
-- 
2.2.1

Re: Texlive

[Daniel Pimentel]

On 2015-03-14 18:54, Andreas Enge wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> the attached patch does what its commit message says. It is the fruit 
> of many
> trials and discussions with Ludovic. The tricky thing was to link to 
> the
> kpsewhich binary in texlive-bin, but to make it take its configuration 
> file
> texmf.cnf from texlive-data. I ended up wrapping all binaries and 
> providing
> them with the suitable value of TEXMFCNF.
> 
> The real goal of the patch is to make it easy to create a second 
> package
> texlive-small in a second step. This package shall inherit from 
> texlive,
> but have as input texlive-texmf-small, which is created as 
> texlive-texmf,
> but after deleting a big chunk of data; I would say, all the 
> documentation
> and most of the fonts. Such a smaller package could be a native input 
> for
> packages creating their documentation from a latex source, for 
> instance.
> 
> Andreas
I'm use latex in some presentation and academic area. But there're some 
much dependencies in Texlive, I have install it but your size is bigger 
(2gb+-), the texlive-small is a great idea. Usualy I'm use pdflatex and 
bibtex to some references, I like bemmer too.
There're a lout package, is smallest that livetext, but there're some 
much papers in academic that use latex :(
I use lout in some presentation and other.
Thanks,
-- 
Daniel Pimentel (d4n1)

Texlive

[Federico Beffa]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> writes:

> Hello,
>
> the attached patch does what its commit message says. It is the fruit of many
> trials and discussions with Ludovic. The tricky thing was to link to the
> kpsewhich binary in texlive-bin, but to make it take its configuration file
> texmf.cnf from texlive-data. I ended up wrapping all binaries and providing
> them with the suitable value of TEXMFCNF.
>
> The real goal of the patch is to make it easy to create a second package
> texlive-small in a second step. This package shall inherit from texlive,
> but have as input texlive-texmf-small, which is created as texlive-texmf,
> but after deleting a big chunk of data; I would say, all the documentation
> and most of the fonts. Such a smaller package could be a native input for
> packages creating their documentation from a latex source, for instance.

If I understand correctly then the two packages, texlive and
texlive-small, will essentially be independent.

It would be nice to have an incremental strategy with a hierarchy, say
texlive-base, texlive-common, texlive-extra, texlive-all, where each
package is non-overlapping with other ones. Then a new functionality to
aggregate packages into a new package where you specify which packages
to include. Something like

guix package --aggregate texlive --with texlive-base texlive-common ...

This would be useful for packages with plug-ins, to bundle compilers with
a selection of libraries, ...

Regards,
Fede

Re: Texlive

[Andreas Enge]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 10:50:05AM +0100, Federico Beffa wrote:
> If I understand correctly then the two packages, texlive and
> texlive-small, will essentially be independent.

Yes, and mutually exclusive: If you install both, then there will be lots
of collisions with an unpredictable outcome.

> It would be nice to have an incremental strategy with a hierarchy, say
> texlive-base, texlive-common, texlive-extra, texlive-all, where each
> package is non-overlapping with other ones. Then a new functionality to
> aggregate packages into a new package where you specify which packages
> to include. Something like
> guix package --aggregate texlive --with texlive-base texlive-common ...

I agree, but did not find a way of doing it. The problem with texlive is
that part of the aggregation takes place in the install location (which for
us would be the store).

For instance, "mktexlsr" creates a file
  /gnu/store/pvhfl19r2v7fn00g45jkv32n211bk90h-texlive-2014/share/texmf-dist/ls-R
(after applying the patch), which contains the result of running "ls -R"
inside the directory. This could be done inside the user profile, but not
with the current setup, where
  $HOME/.guix-profile/share/texmf-dist is a link to the store directory
(which is a useful feature we added at some point in time, since it avoids
the need for symlinking the thousands of files inside this directory tree),
so that the ls-R file would be tried to be created in the store.

Then there are the calls to updmap-sys and fmtutil-sys, which I did not
look at in more detail. The latter seems to create files
texmf-var/web2c/*.fmt; it may be possible to create them by chunks and to
merge them in the profile (and then do the "ls -R"-business).

In non-functional (:-)) distributions, the problem is solved by recreating
a global configuration upon installation of an additional package.

So there may be better ways, and anybody is welcome to look into them!
My patch makes a first step by separating things better.

Andreas

Re: Texlive

[Federico Beffa]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 11:48 AM, Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> wrote:
>> It would be nice to have an incremental strategy with a hierarchy, say
>> texlive-base, texlive-common, texlive-extra, texlive-all, where each
>> package is non-overlapping with other ones. Then a new functionality to
>> aggregate packages into a new package where you specify which packages
>> to include. Something like
>> guix package --aggregate texlive --with texlive-base texlive-common ...
>
> I agree, but did not find a way of doing it. The problem with texlive is
> that part of the aggregation takes place in the install location (which for
> us would be the store).
>
> For instance, "mktexlsr" creates a file
>   /gnu/store/pvhfl19r2v7fn00g45jkv32n211bk90h-texlive-2014/share/texmf-dist/ls-R
> (after applying the patch), which contains the result of running "ls -R"
> inside the directory. This could be done inside the user profile, but not
> with the current setup, where
>   $HOME/.guix-profile/share/texmf-dist is a link to the store directory
> (which is a useful feature we added at some point in time, since it avoids
> the need for symlinking the thousands of files inside this directory tree),
> so that the ls-R file would be tried to be created in the store.

Just to clarify: the idea would be that the "--aggregate" command
would produce a new package in the store. The new in store package
would inherit the content of the "--with" packages, but with the
possibility to replace some parts (e.g. ls-R, ...) with the help of
some phase. The new parts would only be residing in the new aggregate
and the user would install the new aggregate instead of the other
individual parts.

I understand that this is currently not possible, but, from my point
of view, would be useful functionality for the future.

> My patch makes a first step by separating things better.

Sure it is!

Regards,
Fede

Re: Texlive

[Mark H Weaver]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> writes:

> @@ -124,70 +121,157 @@
>  
>        ;; Disable tests on mips64 to cope with a failure of luajiterr.test.
>        ;; XXX FIXME fix luajit properly on mips64.
> -      #:tests? ,(not (string-prefix? "mips64" (or (%current-target-system)
> +      #:tests? ,(not (equal? "mips64el-linux" (or (%current-target-system)
>                                                    (%current-system))))

What is the rationale for this change?

Contrary to what one might expect based on the names of those procedures
and the frequent pattern

  (or (%current-target-system) (%current-system))

(%current-target-system) returns a GNU triplet whereas (%current-system)
returns a Nix system.  A GNU triplet for MIPS64 will start with "mips64"
but is unlikely to be "mips64el-linux".

     Mark

Re: Texlive

[Andreas Enge]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 11:33:45AM -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> > -      #:tests? ,(not (string-prefix? "mips64" (or (%current-target-system)
> > +      #:tests? ,(not (equal? "mips64el-linux" (or (%current-target-system)
> What is the rationale for this change?

None. I see you made a change on January 6. I have been working on texlive
before, so probably things merged strangely.

Thanks for spotting this!

Andreas

Re: Texlive

[Ludovic Courtès]

Federico Beffa <beffa@ieee.org> skribis:

> It would be nice to have an incremental strategy with a hierarchy, say
> texlive-base, texlive-common, texlive-extra, texlive-all, where each
> package is non-overlapping with other ones. Then a new functionality to
> aggregate packages into a new package where you specify which packages
> to include. Something like
>
> guix package --aggregate texlive --with texlive-base texlive-common ...
>
> This would be useful for packages with plug-ins, to bundle compilers with
> a selection of libraries, ...

I think the problem here is really that TeX Live is monolithic, and I
don’t think that should be addressed by the packaging tools themselves.

My 2¢,
Ludo’.

Re: Texlive

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> the attached patch does what its commit message says. It is the fruit of many
> trials and discussions with Ludovic. The tricky thing was to link to the
> kpsewhich binary in texlive-bin, but to make it take its configuration file
> texmf.cnf from texlive-data. I ended up wrapping all binaries and providing
> them with the suitable value of TEXMFCNF.

I don’t want to spoil the party ;-), but could it be that there are
programs outside of TeX Live that use libkpathsea & co.?

> The real goal of the patch is to make it easy to create a second package
> texlive-small in a second step. This package shall inherit from texlive,
> but have as input texlive-texmf-small, which is created as texlive-texmf,
> but after deleting a big chunk of data; I would say, all the documentation
> and most of the fonts. Such a smaller package could be a native input for
> packages creating their documentation from a latex source, for instance.

That would be nice.

Thanks for your hard work on this!

Ludo’.

Re: Texlive

[Andreas Enge]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 05:54:22PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> I don’t want to spoil the party ;-), but could it be that there are
> programs outside of TeX Live that use libkpathsea & co.?

Theoretically yes, but practically I do not think so.

Andreas

Re: Texlive

[Andreas Enge]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 12:16:58PM +0100, Federico Beffa wrote:
> Just to clarify: the idea would be that the "--aggregate" command
> would produce a new package in the store. The new in store package
> would inherit the content of the "--with" packages, but with the
> possibility to replace some parts (e.g. ls-R, ...) with the help of
> some phase. The new parts would only be residing in the new aggregate
> and the user would install the new aggregate instead of the other
> individual parts.

I see. As mentioned by Ludovic, this seems like a big hammer to solve a
smallish problem. Something easier could be done in the texlive module
already. I considered something along the following lines:
- Write a procedure that takes a (possibly empty) list of subdirectories to
  delete from texlive-texmf, and that returns the corresponding package.
  For the current texlive-texmf, one would pass an empty list, for
  texlive-texmf-small, it could be a list containing "doc", for instance.
- Write a procedure that takes a texlive-texmf type input and creates
  a corresponding texlive package, and use it for texlive and texlive-small.
This would be theoretically very flexible, but I think we want to limit the
number of texlive packages exposed to the public; personally, I would say
to two...

Andreas

Re: Texlive

[Federico Beffa]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 5:51 PM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

> I think the problem here is really that TeX Live is monolithic, and I
> don’t think that should be addressed by the packaging tools themselves.

The main TeX Live installer may make it look like it is monolithic,
but it isn't monolithic at all. It is very configurable and every user
can add his own classes, fonts, packages, ... wherever he wants even
using central installations on traditional UNIX systems. TeX Live has
its own management tool 'tlmgr', but underneath it makes use of
established Web2C tools.

As one example, setting
export TEXINPUTS=~/.guix-profile/share/texmf:

all the files in the personal profile would be found (on top of the
ones in the central installation configuration files). You can even
specify if you want to make use of files databases (ls-R), or not (and
that for each directory tree individually). See, e.g.,

http://tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html#x1-540007

Making the various TeX tools find components (classes, fonts, ...) in
"extra" store locations may be tricky, but making it find them once
installed in a user profile should be easy.

Maybe finding files in "extra" store directories could be achieved by
making use of variables expansion, something like
"!!/gnu/store//share/texmf" (note the double slash and exclamation
marks), in the central configuration file. (See above document.)

I think that working out the proper way to install it on Guix may be
tricky, but, given the flexibility, a good hierarchical solution
should be possible.

Regards,
Fede

Re: Texlive

[Ludovic Courtès]

Federico Beffa <beffa@ieee.org> skribis:

> As one example, setting
> export TEXINPUTS=~/.guix-profile/share/texmf:
>
> all the files in the personal profile would be found (on top of the
> ones in the central installation configuration files). You can even
> specify if you want to make use of files databases (ls-R), or not (and
> that for each directory tree individually). See, e.g.,
>
> http://tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html#x1-540007

OK, interesting.

> Making the various TeX tools find components (classes, fonts, ...) in
> "extra" store locations may be tricky, but making it find them once
> installed in a user profile should be easy.
>
> Maybe finding files in "extra" store directories could be achieved by
> making use of variables expansion, something like
> "!!/gnu/store//share/texmf" (note the double slash and exclamation
> marks), in the central configuration file. (See above document.)
>
> I think that working out the proper way to install it on Guix may be
> tricky, but, given the flexibility, a good hierarchical solution
> should be possible.

IMO the ideal would have to have it split into a bunch of packages or
package outputs, like “core”, “doc”, “extra.”  Ideally, users could
choose to install 1, 2, or 3 of these and things would just work.

I’m not really knowledgeable but that seemed extremely difficult to
achieve (Andreas might want to share his sufferings ;-)).  Part of the
reason is that there’s no simple search path mechanism, and instead
something sophisticated that includes texmf.cnf and a couple of
libraries and commands to deal with search paths.

The latter prevents the addition of a “doc” output, for instance,
because the ‘texdoc’ command (in “out”) needs to refer to the “doc”
output, and vice versa (there cannot be circular references among
outputs of a derivation.)

Anyway, I think everyone would love a better solution, so if you have
ideas, do not hesitate.  :-)

Thanks,
Ludo’.