Subject: Re: tetex-beta nitpicking [WAS: Re: no more package moratorium?]
From: Jan Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>
To: Markus Hoenicka <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: 15 Nov 2001 20:54:25 +0100

Markus Hoenicka <[email-masked]> writes:

> You can't even install MiKTeX unless you run the latest Windows or the
> latest Internet Explorer.

Strange, we haven't had any complaints.  It seemst that MiKTeX
installs and runs flawlessly.  Note that, of course, MiKTeX is
packaged in a tarball and installed through setup.exe.  Maybe our
Windows users are all using that latest software?

> I have instructions about installing a SGML system on Windows which
> also uses TeX for the printable output:
> 
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hoenicka_markus/cygbook1.html

Thanks, but I don't think that would do.  Currently, windows users run
setup.exe, and they get a working LilyPond environment.  We get lots
of questions and complaints if it doesn't work that way.  Even if
there are simple, step by step, instructions on what to do after
running setup.exe.

> I provide a very simple shell script (for SGML->PS/PDF
> transformations) that takes care of the 'cygpath hell'. It is not
> that hard.

Yes, we distribute shell scripts too, that cygpath the tex/mf
environment settings.  But this is all rather ugly.  mktextfm and such
don't really work, when triggered from the kpathsea lib.

> It used to work for MiKTeX and works now for fpTeX and for
> Cygwin teTeX (and even for TeX on Unix platforms).

Ah, but then you know how difficult it can be to write or debug a
texmf.conf, and why you don't want users that haven't ever heard of
TeX or environment variables (or tar for that matter) to even have to
touch a tex installation?  (Unless you live from giving support,
perhaps :-)

> Did you install the teTeX texmf tree?

No, I installed tetex-beta, that's all the tetex that setup.exe will
install, right?  That's why we still have to distribute and maitain
our own, modified setup.exe and repository (apart from the just lifted
package moratorium).

> Just installing Tetex-beta is not enough, as explained by the
> Tetex-beta readme.

Yes, I know.  That's why we can't use it.  Users in general won't read
READMEs, let alone they would be able to follow simple instructions
:-(

The fact that there's a README with instructions, instead of an
additional tetex package, for example, tells me that there is some
intelligent user-interaction required.

Greetings,
Jan.

-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien       | http://www.lilypond.org

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