teTeX

Re: teTeX package
dialog is included for texconfig to work. ncurses is needed for dialog. libwww used to be needed for the hyperlink features of xdvi.texinfo is needed for people who want to process their texinfo documentation.

You may work on a system that has dialog, ncurses etc. already installed. This is not true for all systems that teTeX runs on. I want that teTeX is easy to install on such systems, too, without having to say: "install package abc first. Then, package xyz. etc".

If you don't want to install e.g. texinfo that comes with teTeX, just

configure --without-texinfo

Shared libraries from the system can be used. A shared version of included libraries such as libkpathsea does not make much sense given the API of the library. Once this is improved, switching to --enable-shared by default will be reconsidered.

uninstalling is very easy if you choose the default configuration: "rm -rf /usr/local/teTeX". Of course, I'd be happy to see a working uninstall target, but that's not a high priority for me at the moment.

Thomas

Re: out of date
This was only a problem for the stable 1.x branch. If you need the latest bleeding edge you can always try the beta releases.

And now with 2.x teTeX is up-to-date.

Package error: extracts to directory with wrong version number
The package "teTeX-1.0.7" is extracted into the
directory "teTeX-1.0"! So if you install it and
look at the directory later you will see the
version 1.0 and you will find version 1.0.7
availible for download. So you think that you
have to upgrade. Very annoying.

out of date
The problem with teTeX is that it's out of date. While this may not be a problem for some of the decades-old software it includes, it is a problem for software that's being actively developed, pdftex in particular. If you want a version of pdftex that actually works, you need to use texLive rather than teTeX. Many of the LaTeX macro packages are also being worked on actively, so again, you're better off using teXLive.

Re: teTeX package

> I agree. I would say I am very
> knowledgeable about Linux and how things
> work. I've installed my entire system
> from scratch (i use no distribution and
> compile from source for everything).
> Yet, I am struggling to get teTex 1.0.7
> going.

Hmm,

I wonder what happened. I just installed the package
from source by following the INSTALL file. Everything
compiled and everything seems to work perfectly. I
compiled some documents I wrote before and had no
problems.

Actually I agree, this is the best TeX distribution for
UNIX, at least the best I know.