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Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 20:31:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
To: "Mcdougall, Robert A." <mcdougar AT purdue DOT edu>
cc: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: RE: tetex 3.0.0-3 format file problem
In-Reply-To: <365B741739683A43A84B3AA09C16AA21579FEA@EXCH01.purdue.lcl>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.61.0505192024570.9701@slinky.cs.nyu.edu>
References: <365B741739683A43A84B3AA09C16AA21579FEA AT EXCH01 DOT purdue DOT lcl>
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On Thu, 19 May 2005, Mcdougall, Robert A. wrote:

> "m. z." <mzap80AThotmailDOTcom> wrote:
>
> BTAM, the wizards will not reply to such naive questions as
> yours or mine.  FWIW, here's what I've found out:
>
> > Why doing "latex" is invoking now pdf format ?
>
> According to the teTeX manual ('doc/tetex/TETEXDOC.{dvi,pdf,ps}'),
> section 4.6, "pdfetex: the new default TEX engine":
>
>     teTEX uses pdfetex for all formats except ``good-old'' tex.
>     So, if you run latex, the underlying engine will be pdfetex.
>
> > In the mail below, I see that still with version 3.0.0-3, which
> > still I have not installed because I failed both with 3.0.0-1
> > and 3.0.0-2, when one is doing "latex filename.tex", in the line
> > below the output is "pdfeTeX..." With the previous version of
> > tetex (2.something) this was not happening.  Is this the source
> > of the problems with tetex 3.0.0-x ?
>
> Perhaps not.  Or if it is, it may not be an insuperable
> obstacle.  My problems with teTeX 3 so far seem to relate to
> outdated configuration files; local configuration files left
> around from teTeX 2 are liable to break teTeX 3.

I'm a far cry from a TeXpert, but I believe you're correct.  The engine
being pdfetexk shouldn't affect anything -- my new LaTeX still happily
produces .dvi files.  But stale config files will cause it to fail.

> For example:
>
> *   If you have an old customized 'web2c/texmf.cnf', even in the
>     main TEXMF tree, the installer may not overwrite it, and the old
>     file will break teTeX 3.  This is because the path configuration
>     rules have changed significantly from teTeX 2.

And because the postinstall script from tetex will not replace a changed
texmf.cnf (nor other config files).  It does something rather
non-sensical, though, since it basically prints the diff to the setup log
file (while the comment states that the user will be shown the diff and
asked what to do).  I wonder if it's time to have a tetex-config script,
similar to cron-config or ssh-host-config, that needs to be invoked before
tetex will run (on installations with custom config files, of course -- on
untouched installs tetex can still run OOTB).

> *   Configuration files in local TEXMF trees may also break the new
>     teTeX, perhaps for reasons related to the pdfetex thang (also
>     new to teTeX 3).  Anyhow, cleaning out the old config files got
>     LaTeX working again for me; YMMV.

HTH,
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_		pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor AT watson DOT ibm DOT com
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

"The Sun will pass between the Earth and the Moon tonight for a total
Lunar eclipse..." -- WCBS Radio Newsbrief, Oct 27 2004, 12:01 pm EDT

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