[gentoo-dev] How to provide a recent TeXLive for Gentoo for our users?

[gentoo-dev] How to provide a recent TeXLive for Gentoo for our users?

[Jonas Stein]

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Dear all,

there was a question on the tex@gentoo ml from a user, who needs a very
recent TeXLive in order to be compatible with other setups.
This is also very important, for users of the more recent programs like
lualatex. Many packages do not work properly in the unfixed old version.

An installation via tlmgr provides many updates per day, but
our distributed TeXLive is unfortunately always behind.
Typically TeXLive on gentoo is 6-12 months behind upstream, because we
have to bump a lot manually.

One solution would be more powerful scripts, which update the TeX
ebuilds, but the ticket is open since 2005.
https://bugs.gentoo.org/85411

On one Gentoo system I installed therefor TeXLive via tlmgr and added
all provided packages in package.provided like this:

/etc/portage/profile/package.provided/texlive.provided
[..]
dev-tex/xcolor-9999
dev-tex/latexdiff-9999
dev-tex/glossaries-9999
dev-tex/biblatex-9999
dev-tex/biber-9999
dev-tex/bibtexu-9999
app-text/texlive-core-9999

This is not a very nice solution, but it works so far. One difficulty
is, that there is no 1:1 relation between the texlive distribution and
dev-texlive/* at the moment.

How can we enable our users to run a recent TeXLive in a clean way?

Ideas are welcome.

-- 
Best,
Jonas


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Re: [gentoo-dev] How to provide a recent TeXLive for Gentoo for our users?

[Alexis Ballier]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2018 11:57:49 +0200
Jonas Stein <jstein@gentoo.org> wrote:
> An installation via tlmgr provides many updates per day, but
> our distributed TeXLive is unfortunately always behind.
> Typically TeXLive on gentoo is 6-12 months behind upstream, because we
> have to bump a lot manually.

That is not the real reason. Most of it has been scripted for 10+ years.
The real reason is that we need to go through ~arch testing, fixing rev
deps that might need update to their .tex files because the underlying
packages they use has changed, adapt the deps for some potential
changes, and then a stablereq round. Following the yearly release cycle
leaves time for it to happen. It could move faster, but I don't see any
need for it as this would mean shortening stabilization cycles
potentially allowing for more bugs to enter stable and increasing the
load on arch teams.


[...]
> This is not a very nice solution, but it works so far. One difficulty
> is, that there is no 1:1 relation between the texlive distribution and
> dev-texlive/* at the moment.

There is a 1:1 relation.


> How can we enable our users to run a recent TeXLive in a clean way?

/usr/local/share/texmf has been supported by texlive on Gentoo from day
one. You can use that. It's an overlay that takes precedence on
anything else, so per the above, you lose all the QA & testing done
behind the scenes if you use this.


Alexis.

Re: [gentoo-dev] How to provide a recent TeXLive for Gentoo for our users?

[Jonas Stein]

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Hi Alexis,

> The real reason is that we need to go through ~arch testing, fixing rev
> deps that might need update to their .tex files because the underlying
> packages they use has changed, adapt the deps for some potential
> changes, and then a stablereq round. 

I agree. This makes the situation not easier.

> [...]
>> This is not a very nice solution, but it works so far. One difficulty
>> is, that there is no 1:1 relation between the texlive distribution and
>> dev-texlive/* at the moment.
> There is a 1:1 relation.

A full installation of TeXLive installs packages, which are in
dev-tex/* and dev-texlive/* on gentoo.
On the other hand single packages are bundled some times.
Some programs/packages can be found in dev-tex/* and dev-texlive/*

I remember, that I last we had for example dev-tex/notoccite in the tree
and dev-texlive/texlive-latexextra including shipped the same, but newer
files.
This is what I meant with "no 1:1 relation"

>> How can we enable our users to run a recent TeXLive in a clean way?
> /usr/local/share/texmf has been supported by texlive on Gentoo from day
> one. You can use that. It's an overlay that takes precedence on
> anything else, so per the above, you lose all the QA & testing done
> behind the scenes if you use this.

And packages which depend on a specific LaTeX package will not install.
So the user has to provide a package.provided list, which is not so nice
to maintain for so many packages.

-- 
Best,
Jonas


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Re: [gentoo-dev] How to provide a recent TeXLive for Gentoo for our users?

[Alexis Ballier]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:07:07 +0200
Jonas Stein <jstein@gentoo.org> wrote:

> > [...]  
> >> This is not a very nice solution, but it works so far. One
> >> difficulty is, that there is no 1:1 relation between the texlive
> >> distribution and dev-texlive/* at the moment.  
> > There is a 1:1 relation.  
> 
> A full installation of TeXLive installs packages, which are in
> dev-tex/* and dev-texlive/* on gentoo.
> On the other hand single packages are bundled some times.
> Some programs/packages can be found in dev-tex/* and dev-texlive/*
> 
> I remember, that I last we had for example dev-tex/notoccite in the
> tree and dev-texlive/texlive-latexextra including shipped the same,
> but newer files.
> This is what I meant with "no 1:1 relation"

The idea with dev-tex/* packages is that they can be split out of
texlive and installed/updated independently as long as they are
actively maintained. While you might have a need for specific updates
on some packages, I seriously doubt you need (and can find the manpower
to maintain) a live ebuild for the whole CTAN and can live with yearly
texlive updates.

The notoccite example is what happens over the years: package is left
unmaintained, texlive catches up and the package becomes useless.
Worse: if done properly it will overlay the more recent version from
texlive! Those packages should be reported and removed (or updated).


> >> How can we enable our users to run a recent TeXLive in a clean
> >> way?  
> > /usr/local/share/texmf has been supported by texlive on Gentoo from
> > day one. You can use that. It's an overlay that takes precedence on
> > anything else, so per the above, you lose all the QA & testing done
> > behind the scenes if you use this.  
> 
> And packages which depend on a specific LaTeX package will not
> install. So the user has to provide a package.provided list, which is
> not so nice to maintain for so many packages.

They will install, only they will pull older unused files from
texlive. As said above, the proper way to avoid this is to step up as
maintainer of some dev-tex/* packages, fix the deps to add a || or
(probably after convincing me it's worth it because the package is
updated very frequently) remove it entirely from texlive and switch the
deps.


Alexis.