Re: [Fink-users] A few questions about xournal fink port

[Alexander H. <ale...@gm...>]

On Dec 30, 2008, at 12:35 AM, M. Singh wrote:

>

<snip material covered in Martin's message>

>>
>>>
>>> Second - is it possible to tell fink installation to use the  
>>> existing
>>> MacTeX 2008 install of texlive instead of installing tetex-texmf ?
>>> Don't
>>> want to waste disk space.
>>>
>>
>> Not currently.  We found that the upstream TeX packagers liked to
>> change things around and break our placeholder packages.
>
> Is there any estimated time frame when this might be done ?

There may well not be a placeholder package, ever.

> The project
> can insist on users installing the full 1.15GB MacTeX 2008 package
> (which is pretty static) if you want

We've got enough problems dealing with stuff from Apple, so making  
provisions for yet another third-party vendor.  Moreover, since MacTeX  
insists on installing a boatload of other stuff, like ghostscript and  
imagemagick, in /usr/local, that would just be inviting trouble for us.

> - this dependence on an
> unmaintained, large, separate piece of code, which offers users  
> nothing,
> and will cause problems in a few months (as texlive diverges more and
> more from it), is a major problem. I am deploying a custom Mac
> configuration with the tools I need on an old notebook with limited  
> disk
> space, and wasting space on something like this, for which I see no
> cogent reason, appears criminal to me.
>

We'll send you a refund. ;-)

But, in all seriousness, my understanding is that texlive,  
historically, had set their installation up in such a way as to be  
nontrivial to package in a managed setting; particularly one with as  
limited of personnel resources as we have.   One of our maintainers is  
looking into packaging TeXLive for fink, but it hasn't been done yet.

I've been lobbying to just remove any tetex dependency from packages  
that can be configured at run time for different TeX engines--I've  
done this in my own packaging of LyX.

> I do not presume to criticize the work, which is splendid in itself,  
> and
> made the thought of using Mac on a notebook less daunting, but I find
> this aspect of this business a little surprising.


>
>
>
>>
>>> Third - aren't there pre-compiled versions of xournal available  
>>> (like
>>> apt-get on Ubuntu/Debian) ?
>>
>> Not through official channels.  We don't do binaries from our  
>> unstable
>> tree.  There are unofficial repositories; however, since the package
>> appears to be broken right now, they don't have a way to generate it,
>> either.
>
> Ok.
>
>