Texlive-texmf

Texlive-texmf

[Andreas Enge]

Hello,

I would like to make the texlive-texmf package private, to avoid that people
erroneously install it into their profiles. One could still build the big
data part locally as follows:

guix build texlive-bin  # This will use substitutes.
guix build --no-substitutes texlive
# This will build texlive-texmf locally, then create texlive, which consists
# mainly of symlinks to texlive-texmf.

Does anybody see a problem with this?

This should not even rebuild anything.

Andreas

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> I would like to make the texlive-texmf package private, to avoid that people
> erroneously install it into their profiles. One could still build the big
> data part locally as follows:
>
> guix build texlive-bin  # This will use substitutes.
> guix build --no-substitutes texlive
> # This will build texlive-texmf locally, then create texlive, which consists
> # mainly of symlinks to texlive-texmf.

Or simply:

  guix build -e '(@@ (gnu packages texlive) texlive-texmf)'

> Does anybody see a problem with this?

Fine with me!

Ludo’.

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Thompson, David]

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 3:19 PM, Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to make the texlive-texmf package private, to avoid that people
> erroneously install it into their profiles. One could still build the big
> data part locally as follows:
>
> guix build texlive-bin  # This will use substitutes.
> guix build --no-substitutes texlive
> # This will build texlive-texmf locally, then create texlive, which consists
> # mainly of symlinks to texlive-texmf.
>
> Does anybody see a problem with this?
>
> This should not even rebuild anything.

I install texlive-texmf into my profile because otherwise latex cannot
find any extensions.  In particular, I was trying to compile a beamer
document and I spent hours wrestling with load paths and nothing
worked until texlive-texmf was available in my profile.  How can we
make this just work so that I don't have to import the private
variable in the future?

- Dave

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Andreas Enge]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 07:07:23PM -0500, Thompson, David wrote:
> I install texlive-texmf into my profile because otherwise latex cannot
> find any extensions.  In particular, I was trying to compile a beamer
> document and I spent hours wrestling with load paths and nothing
> worked until texlive-texmf was available in my profile.  How can we
> make this just work so that I don't have to import the private
> variable in the future?

So you say that just installing 'texlive' was not enough?
Or did you install manually 'texlive-bin' and 'texlive-texmf' separately?

Andreas

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Andreas Enge]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 12:20:33AM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Or simply:
>   guix build -e '(@@ (gnu packages texlive) texlive-texmf)'

That is nifty! I suppose this also uses substitutes if present? In that case,
we could even make the texlive-bin package private as well, and a user could
execute:
   guix build -e '(@@ (gnu packages texlive) texlive-bin)'
   guix download file:/my/path/to/texlive-20150523-texmf.tar.xz
   guix build -e '(@@ (gnu packages texlive) texlive)' --no-substitutes

Andreas

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 12:20:33AM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Or simply:
>>   guix build -e '(@@ (gnu packages texlive) texlive-texmf)'
>
> That is nifty! I suppose this also uses substitutes if present?

Yes, of course.

> In that case,
> we could even make the texlive-bin package private as well, and a user could
> execute:
>    guix build -e '(@@ (gnu packages texlive) texlive-bin)'
>    guix download file:/my/path/to/texlive-20150523-texmf.tar.xz
>    guix build -e '(@@ (gnu packages texlive) texlive)' --no-substitutes

We don’t want people to have to do that, do we?  :-)

Personally, I don’t want to have to think beyond “guix package -i
texlive”.

Ludo’.

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Andreas Enge]

On Wed, Mar 02, 2016 at 10:34:23AM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> We don’t want people to have to do that, do we?  :-)
> Personally, I don’t want to have to think beyond “guix package -i
> texlive”.

It is only about choice, you can always just install texlive if you are
ready to download gigabytes of data!

Personally, I like to just download texlive-bin and to build texlive locally
from a tarball stored locally on my hard disk, to avoid downloading all the
data. This was the original reason (plus easier debugging) that I kept the
internal packages -bin and -texmf public; I think it was a mistake, since it
seems to lead to a lot of confusion.

So I will hide both the internal packages one of these days.

Users are advised to not install either texlive-bin or texlive-texmf into
their profile; they will not work correctly together. Either install texlive
to get the full experience, or try out texlive-minimal (which ships neither
the documentation nor the fonts except for Computer Modern, and also breaks
some of the more exotic tex frontends).

Andreas

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> On Wed, Mar 02, 2016 at 10:34:23AM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> We don’t want people to have to do that, do we?  :-)
>> Personally, I don’t want to have to think beyond “guix package -i
>> texlive”.
>
> It is only about choice, you can always just install texlive if you are
> ready to download gigabytes of data!
>
> Personally, I like to just download texlive-bin and to build texlive locally
> from a tarball stored locally on my hard disk, to avoid downloading all the
> data.

I understand, but this is hack to work around “broken packaging” on our
side (“broken” in the sense that it sucks in comparison to what, say,
Debian provides), not a great recipe that we want users to care about.

> This was the original reason (plus easier debugging) that I kept the
> internal packages -bin and -texmf public; I think it was a mistake,
> since it seems to lead to a lot of confusion.
>
> So I will hide both the internal packages one of these days.

OK.

Ludo’.

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Andreas Enge]

On Thu, Mar 03, 2016 at 06:04:17PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:
> > This was the original reason (plus easier debugging) that I kept the
> > internal packages -bin and -texmf public; I think it was a mistake,
> > since it seems to lead to a lot of confusion.
> > So I will hide both the internal packages one of these days.
> OK.

Well, in the end this is not so easily possible.

gnuplot depends on texlive-bin as a native-input. I replaced this by
texlive-minimal, but I think the native input can be dropped completely.
The only difference I could see was the installation of a file
/gnu/store/cgkbv12bpd2v5razsj2nkx7xfrf6fxy0-gnuplot-5.0.2/share/texmf/tex/latex/gnuplot/gnuplot.cfg
that contains essentially nothing:
%% A configuration file for the epslatex terminal by Harald Harders.
%% This file is part of Gnuplot.
%%
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\endinput
%%
%% End of file `gnuplot.cfg'.

and of postscript files in
/gnu/store/cgkbv12bpd2v5razsj2nkx7xfrf6fxy0-gnuplot-5.0.2/share/gnuplot/5.0/PostScript
which gv cannot display.

Is it okay to drop the dependency?


Second, there is gettext with a native input texlive-bin.
It is supposedly used for tests; I did not see anything evident in the
logs (but then, searching for "tex" in "gettext" logs, it is easy to overlook
things...). Probably that is overkill, and I would assume we can safely
remove the input. But then, this would have to be done in core-updates.

What do you think?

Andreas

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> On Thu, Mar 03, 2016 at 06:04:17PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:
>> > This was the original reason (plus easier debugging) that I kept the
>> > internal packages -bin and -texmf public; I think it was a mistake,
>> > since it seems to lead to a lot of confusion.
>> > So I will hide both the internal packages one of these days.
>> OK.
>
> Well, in the end this is not so easily possible.
>
> gnuplot depends on texlive-bin as a native-input. I replaced this by
> texlive-minimal, but I think the native input can be dropped completely.

Not sure.  Eric added the dependency on TeX Live in 97003b5c.
Eric, WDYT?

> Second, there is gettext with a native input texlive-bin.

No, fortunately not!  :-)

Ludo’.

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Andreas Enge]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2016 at 05:41:44PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> > Second, there is gettext with a native input texlive-bin.
> No, fortunately not!  :-)

My bad! I was mixing it up with po4a in the gettext module.
It requires texlive for its tests; if we were to take texlive out, we would
need to patch away t/24-tex.t.

Andreas

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Eric Bavier]

On Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:41:44 +0100
ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:

> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:
> 
> > On Thu, Mar 03, 2016 at 06:04:17PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:  
> >> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:  
> >> > This was the original reason (plus easier debugging) that I kept the
> >> > internal packages -bin and -texmf public; I think it was a mistake,
> >> > since it seems to lead to a lot of confusion.
> >> > So I will hide both the internal packages one of these days.  
> >> OK.  
> >
> > Well, in the end this is not so easily possible.
> >
> > gnuplot depends on texlive-bin as a native-input. I replaced this by
> > texlive-minimal, but I think the native input can be dropped completely.  
> 
> Not sure.  Eric added the dependency on TeX Live in 97003b5c.
> Eric, WDYT?

Gnuplot looks for some binaries to determine whether and where to
install some latex sty files.  As long as those are still installed with
texlive-minimal, that should be fine.  I used texlive-bin in order to
remove the heavyweight texlive dependency.
 
`~Eric

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Ludovic Courtès]

Eric Bavier <ericbavier@openmailbox.org> skribis:

> On Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:41:44 +0100
> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:
>
>> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:
>> 
>> > On Thu, Mar 03, 2016 at 06:04:17PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:  
>> >> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:  
>> >> > This was the original reason (plus easier debugging) that I kept the
>> >> > internal packages -bin and -texmf public; I think it was a mistake,
>> >> > since it seems to lead to a lot of confusion.
>> >> > So I will hide both the internal packages one of these days.  
>> >> OK.  
>> >
>> > Well, in the end this is not so easily possible.
>> >
>> > gnuplot depends on texlive-bin as a native-input. I replaced this by
>> > texlive-minimal, but I think the native input can be dropped completely.  
>> 
>> Not sure.  Eric added the dependency on TeX Live in 97003b5c.
>> Eric, WDYT?
>
> Gnuplot looks for some binaries to determine whether and where to
> install some latex sty files.  As long as those are still installed with
> texlive-minimal, that should be fine.  I used texlive-bin in order to
> remove the heavyweight texlive dependency.

Would Gnuplot’s own sty files still be installed if we remove the
dependency?  Or are they redundant with what TeX Live provides?

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Texlive-texmf

[Eric Bavier]

On Tue, 08 Mar 2016 10:04:14 +0100
ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:

> Eric Bavier <ericbavier@openmailbox.org> skribis:
> 
> > On Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:41:44 +0100
> > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:
> >  
> >> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:
> >>   
> >> > On Thu, Mar 03, 2016 at 06:04:17PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:    
> >> >> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:    
> >> >> > This was the original reason (plus easier debugging) that I kept the
> >> >> > internal packages -bin and -texmf public; I think it was a mistake,
> >> >> > since it seems to lead to a lot of confusion.
> >> >> > So I will hide both the internal packages one of these days.    
> >> >> OK.    
> >> >
> >> > Well, in the end this is not so easily possible.
> >> >
> >> > gnuplot depends on texlive-bin as a native-input. I replaced this by
> >> > texlive-minimal, but I think the native input can be dropped completely.    
> >> 
> >> Not sure.  Eric added the dependency on TeX Live in 97003b5c.
> >> Eric, WDYT?  
> >
> > Gnuplot looks for some binaries to determine whether and where to
> > install some latex sty files.  As long as those are still installed with
> > texlive-minimal, that should be fine.  I used texlive-bin in order to
> > remove the heavyweight texlive dependency.  
> 
> Would Gnuplot’s own sty files still be installed if we remove the
> dependency?

gnuplot's configure script will refuse to install the latex cfg for the
epslatex terminal unless those binaries are found.  This seems like an
artificial limitation, and could probably be patched out.

> Or are they redundant with what TeX Live provides?

They don't seem redundant, but I honestly don't know exactly what they
are used for.

`~Eric