Re: Texlive

[ludo@gnu.org (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’.