Hi Adam,

On Mon, 03 Sep 2018 09:32:14 +1200
adam <ahcnz@orcon.net.nz> wrote:

> On Sun, 2018-09-02 at 11:04 +0100, Eric S Fraga wrote:
> > On Saturday,  1 Sep 2018 at 22:12, adam wrote: 
> > >
> > > Am on Ubuntu 16.04, org-version is 8.2.10 
> > >
> > > Export to PDF C-c C-e l o  is working. 
> > > However I wish finer grain LaTeX control. 
> > >
> > >
> > > For Export to PDF to work, I needed  pdftex   
> > But org exports to LaTeX, not TeX.  I.e. it exports to TeX with the
> > assumption that the LaTeX macros are all available.
> >
> > Am I missing something?
> >
> > What finer grain control would you like that you cannot achieve
> > using org directions such as #+latex: and #+begin_export latex?
> >   
>
> I require management of TeX (TeX Live) for export to PDF (LaTeX). 
>
> The Tex Live manager (tlmgr) displays available fonts, loads and
> removes fonts and other packages. 
> https://www.tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr.html 
>
>
> Sure, pdftex (from texlive-latex-extra) enables org-mode export to
> PDF, however the fonts available are opaque within the TexLive
> environment without tlmgr. Navigation of TexLive customizations, set
> with install-tl are opaque without tlmgr.  
>
>
> packages for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS can be seen here, 
> https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=texlive 
>
> using the TexLive installer  install-tl  can be seen here, 
> https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1092/how-to-install-vanilla-texlive-on-debian-or-u
> buntu 
>
>
> In other words, org-mode export to PDF assumes a pdftex, and the
> tex/texlive/LaTex environment is up to the user to simply provide a
> pdftex. 
>

I don't get the “require management” part of this.  Ubuntu has about
100 texlive packages, the texlive distribution offers about 47.  The
SUSE guys went overboard and had (still have?) about 3500 packages ---
a former 2-hour installation with about 3-5 “texlive” packages (fully
automated) took 4.5 plus then...

Why don't you just install Ubuntu's texlive-full and be done with it?

Best regards
Robert