Date: Sat, 26 May 2012 09:01:37 -0400 From: Jerry <jerry@seibercom.net> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: TeXLive merge into FreeBSD ports tree - is this going to happen or not? Message-ID: <20120526090137.001691dc@scorpio> In-Reply-To: <CACsYpVOz1tnWO5e4S_OOSDGa7Q8OkztJ6HagHy58FY0J5RNCqQ@mail.gmail.com> References: <CACsYpVOz1tnWO5e4S_OOSDGa7Q8OkztJ6HagHy58FY0J5RNCqQ@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sat, 26 May 2012 22:42:50 +1200 Sam Lin articulated: >Those who are using LaTeX on FreeBSD must know that tetex has been >discontinued years ago and that TeXLive is now recommended, however >TeXLive has never been merged in the ports tree on FreeBSD and that >tetex is still used on FreeBSD ports. Although there have been some >"customized" work so that FreeBSD users can install and use TeXLive on >FreeBSD machine (for example, >http://code.google.com/p/freebsd-texlive/wiki/Installing), this is >quite confusing and may still cause conflict on the system side when >using or maintaining it. > >There has also been years of gossips that a Japanese developer Hiroki >Sato (hrs@freebsd) has been working on this matter for the last years >and therefore the FreeBSD admin panel don't want anyone else to work >on this and merge it into the ports tree. > >I actually contacted Hiroki Sato in the beginning of last year (2011) >regarding this, and in his reply he said that there had been several >technical issues but most of them had been solved and almost ready to >merge into the port tree, and that he was planning to go forward after >the 8.2/7.4 releases (one or two weeks later from that time stage) are >out. However, more than a year has passed since then and still nothing >happened. I tried to contact him several times after that (email, >tweet, etc) but haven't heard anything back from him at all. > >Is TeXLive really going to be merged into the FreeBSD ports tree as >Hiroki Sato mentioned previously? Or is this just a myth?? > >I am now thinking that this should be put into the "FreeBSD Project >ideas List" [http://wiki.freebsd.org/IdeasPage]. The real irony here is that I have been playing around with "TeX Live" on Windows for several years. I have serious doubts as to whether it can ever be made to run as easily and be updated as effortlessly on FreeBSD as it is on a Windows system. Considering how the ports system works, I find it rather had to imagine that it would. I can compare porting "TeX Live" to FreeBSD and hoping to make it work effortlessly to attempting to write all major applications in pure assembly language. I suppose with enough man hours invested it might be possible, but why bother. I would seriously question the actual number of users who both need "TeX Live" and are not able to use it on another environment. There are so many other projects that FreeBSD could be reasonably concentrating on that I find this one to be a priority at best. -- Jerry ♔ Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. __________________________________________________________________
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