[gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Steve Long]

Alexis Ballier wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>> What are we going to do with the global tetex USE flag?
>> app-text/tetex is deprecated in favour of TeXLive which is still hard
>> masked but will be the default TeX distribution in the future.
>> Rename it to tex as TeXLive is based on teTeX? And what about
>> USE=latex? Use a generic tex for it, too?
> 
> 
> I had been thinking about it and am not sure what would be the best
> option:
> Some packages use the tetex useflag to enable some latex support, in
> which case a latex useflag should be fine. (e.g. doxygen is the first
> one I found that seems to be in that case)
> Some others use it to enable kpathsea support, where tetex is the
> historical distribution that provides it for us. From quickly digging
> into lcdf-typetools code for ex., it seems it is used there to locate
> files and update the kpathsea files so that other apps using kpathsea
> will see the changes it has made. That way it integrates with a
> tetex-alike distribution. So, imho, in that case a kpathsea useflag
> would make more sense; but I doubt such a useflag name will speak by
> itself.
> 
The flag sounds ideal to me; there are plenty of other flags which just
say "Use lib N to do X" and for people who know the area, the lib is known,
and for newbs they normally should know about it. (Half the educational
value in gentoo is finding out about other software like that imo.)


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[gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Christian Faulhammer]

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Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org>:

> > What are we going to do with the global tetex USE flag?
> > app-text/tetex is deprecated in favour of TeXLive which is still
> > hard masked but will be the default TeX distribution in the future.
> > Rename it to tex as TeXLive is based on teTeX? And what about
> > USE=latex? Use a generic tex for it, too?
> I had been thinking about it and am not sure what would be the best
> option:

 After some more calm minutes thinking about it:

> Some packages use the tetex useflag to enable some latex support, in
> which case a latex useflag should be fine. (e.g. doxygen is the first
> one I found that seems to be in that case)

 Agree.

> Some others use it to enable kpathsea support, where tetex is the
> historical distribution that provides it for us. From quickly digging
> into lcdf-typetools code for ex., it seems it is used there to locate
> files and update the kpathsea files so that other apps using kpathsea
> will see the changes it has made. That way it integrates with a
> tetex-alike distribution. So, imho, in that case a kpathsea useflag
> would make more sense; but I doubt such a useflag name will speak by
> itself.

 Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.  Anyone?

V-Li

-- 
Christian Faulhammer, Gentoo Lisp project
<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://www.faulhammer.org/>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Tobias Klausmann]

Hi! 

On Tue, 06 Nov 2007, Christian Faulhammer wrote:
> > tetex-alike distribution. So, imho, in that case a kpathsea useflag
> > would make more sense; but I doubt such a useflag name will speak by
> > itself.
> 
>  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.  Anyone?

As long as the description of the USE flag (such as by euse -i)
is usefule (and *not* the equally omnipresentand useless  "foo -
enables foo support"), I see no trouble in using it.

In this case I'd go for:
kpathsea - Enable (La)TeX integration.

I do understand that sometimes a given USE flags description
can't be unified. USE="foo" might enable very different things in
different packages. But then, global USE flags are the only once
where this is a concern.

For example, take mplayer's (local) USE flag "vidix". euse -i isn't
exactly helpful: "Support for vidix video output"

IMHO, it'd better be "Support X11 DGA video output using the
vidix interface"

One might argue that I should know the stuff I want but what if
I'd want the support for foo if I only knew about it?

Also, my (arguably not very good) example illustrates how extra
keywords might help the user find out what exactly vidix is using
Google.

Regards,
Tobias

PS: Yes, I've read the recend mp3/mp3{de,en}code discussuion,
same problem, actually.
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[gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Christian Faulhammer]

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Tobias Klausmann <klausman@schwarzvogel.de>:

> On Tue, 06 Nov 2007, Christian Faulhammer wrote:
> > > tetex-alike distribution. So, imho, in that case a kpathsea
> > > useflag would make more sense; but I doubt such a useflag name
> > > will speak by itself.
> >  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.
> > Anyone?
> As long as the description of the USE flag (such as by euse -i)
> is usefule (and *not* the equally omnipresentand useless  "foo -
> enables foo support"), I see no trouble in using it.
> In this case I'd go for:
> kpathsea - Enable (La)TeX integration.

 Which I don't consider as correct: "enable integration with kpathsea
search library (TeX related)"

> IMHO, it'd better be "Support X11 DGA video output using the
> vidix interface"

 Right, we have too many bad descriptions.  Maybe a project for you
to prepare a patch for use*.desc? :) 

V-Li

-- 
Christian Faulhammer, Gentoo Lisp project
<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://www.faulhammer.org/>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Tobias Klausmann]

Hi! 

On Tue, 06 Nov 2007, Christian Faulhammer wrote:
> Tobias Klausmann <klausman@schwarzvogel.de>:
> > On Tue, 06 Nov 2007, Christian Faulhammer wrote:
> > > > tetex-alike distribution. So, imho, in that case a kpathsea
> > > > useflag would make more sense; but I doubt such a useflag name
> > > > will speak by itself.
> > >  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.
> > > Anyone?
> > As long as the description of the USE flag (such as by euse -i)
> > is usefule (and *not* the equally omnipresentand useless  "foo -
> > enables foo support"), I see no trouble in using it.
> > In this case I'd go for:
> > kpathsea - Enable (La)TeX integration.
> 
>  Which I don't consider as correct: "enable integration with kpathsea
> search library (TeX related)"
> 
> > IMHO, it'd better be "Support X11 DGA video output using the
> > vidix interface"
> 
>  Right, we have too many bad descriptions.  Maybe a project for you
> to prepare a patch for use*.desc? :) 

Actually, I might consider it. Unfortunately, I tried to cut off
my finger last sunday and as such I'm typing-impaired for now. At
least I got sick leave until Friday :-/ And two nasty tetanus
shots :-( <cue more whining, I'm too lazy to type>

Anyway, I'm considering your "offer" :)

Regards,
Tobias

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Alexis Ballier]

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Hi,

>  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.  Anyone?

+1 for latex & kpathsea. How/when do we start ? :) I'd say start moving
useflags on a per package basis, making them local for now. Once there
are enough, let us move to a global one. Once this is finished, let us
deprecate the tetex useflag.

+0.5 for tex: it's a good idea, but I dont know about any package using
only tex and not latex (and where it would be optional). Perhaps I'm
wrong there.


Alexis.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Ferris McCormick]

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On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 09:13 +0100, Alexis Ballier wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> >  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.  Anyone?
> 
> +1 for latex & kpathsea. How/when do we start ? :) I'd say start moving
> useflags on a per package basis, making them local for now. Once there
> are enough, let us move to a global one. Once this is finished, let us
> deprecate the tetex useflag.
> 
> +0.5 for tex: it's a good idea, but I dont know about any package using
> only tex and not latex (and where it would be optional). Perhaps I'm
> wrong there.
> 

I don't think documentation using texinfo.tex (the documentation that
comes in .texi files) uses latex --- I believe that texinfo.tex uses
just plain tex.

> 
> Alexis.
Regards,
Ferris
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@gentoo.org>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc)


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Robert Buchholz]

Am 07.11.2007 um 14:09 schrieb Ferris McCormick:
> On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 09:13 +0100, Alexis Ballier wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>>  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.   
>>> Anyone?
>>
>> +1 for latex & kpathsea. How/when do we start ? :) I'd say start  
>> moving
>> useflags on a per package basis, making them local for now. Once  
>> there
>> are enough, let us move to a global one. Once this is finished,  
>> let us
>> deprecate the tetex useflag.
>>
>> +0.5 for tex: it's a good idea, but I dont know about any package  
>> using
>> only tex and not latex (and where it would be optional). Perhaps I'm
>> wrong there.
>>
>
> I don't think documentation using texinfo.tex (the documentation that
> comes in .texi files) uses latex --- I believe that texinfo.tex uses
> just plain tex.

Do we even provide plain tex via an ebuild or useflag?
If not, why bother to differentiate?

Robert

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Alexis Ballier]

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Hi,

> >
> > I don't think documentation using texinfo.tex (the documentation
> > that comes in .texi files) uses latex --- I believe that
> > texinfo.tex uses just plain tex.

actually you got a point; but let me show how the boundary is small:

take a texi file, process it with tex -> it works.
remove the \input texinfo at the beginning -> fails

run: 
$ tex -ini   -jobname=texinfo -progname=texinfo texinfo.ini

that will give you: texinfo.fmt and texinfo.log in the current directory
run as root:
# ln -s tex /usr/bin/texinfo

then run texinfo on your .texi file where you have removed the \input
(and in the same directory where you had texinfo.fmt) -> it works
funny heh ?

what is a format ? it's just : run tex on a file, dump the memory
of the interpreter and write it to a file.

what is latex ? bah it's just more or less the same thing: some tex
macros and definitions, processed through a tex engine to get latex.fmt
If you check it, the latex executable is just a symlink to the tex
engine used by your distribution ;)


Seeing that, should we call it tex, texi or texinfo ? is latex really
latex or should we call it tex ?
I don't have any answer to that, and I think we should have useflag
names that refer to commonly used names for what they represent. If you
tell me that .texi files are commonly referenced as tex stuff, then why
not tex; but I'd call it texinfo.


> Do we even provide plain tex via an ebuild or useflag?

for the above reasons, we have tex ;)

Regards,


Alexis.

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[gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Christian Faulhammer]

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Ferris McCormick <fmccor@gentoo.org>:

> > >  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.
> > > Anyone?
> > +1 for latex & kpathsea. How/when do we start ? :) I'd say start
> > moving useflags on a per package basis, making them local for now.
> > Once there are enough, let us move to a global one. Once this is
> > finished, let us deprecate the tetex useflag.
> > +0.5 for tex: it's a good idea, but I dont know about any package
> > using only tex and not latex (and where it would be optional).
> > Perhaps I'm wrong there.
> I don't think documentation using texinfo.tex (the documentation that
> comes in .texi files) uses latex --- I believe that texinfo.tex uses
> just plain tex.

 LaTeX, Texinfo, ConTeXt and what else you can think of, are TeX
formats (no details on what a format is, look it up yourself) and
equivalent.  So separate USE flags do make sense, though Texinfo is a
special categroy.

V-Li

-- 
Christian Faulhammer, Gentoo Lisp project
<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://www.faulhammer.org/>

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[gentoo-dev] Re: USE flag transition: tetex and latex

[Christian Faulhammer]

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Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org>:

> Hi,
> 
> >  Yes, we should introduce tex, latex and kpathsea USE flags.
> > Anyone?
> +1 for latex & kpathsea. How/when do we start ? :) I'd say start
> moving useflags on a per package basis, making them local for now.
> Once there are enough, let us move to a global one. Once this is
> finished, let us deprecate the tetex useflag.

 Ok, Gnuplot is being done by me and we will do it gradually...maybe
open a tracker bug to collect all this, as have been done with
USE=tcltk/tcl/tk, qt/qt3/qt4 and gtk/gtk2?
<URL:https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137785>
 First, collect all packages having latex/tetex/tex USE flags and check
if actions are needed, then cc maintainers and give them some weeks to
rework it.
 
> +0.5 for tex: it's a good idea, but I dont know about any package
> using only tex and not latex (and where it would be optional).
> Perhaps I'm wrong there.

 Let's decide on a per package basis.

V-Li

-- 
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<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://www.faulhammer.org/>

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