Portable Latex available
marco caminati
of TeTeX 3.0, for the ones (like me) facing a good deal of PC
nomadism.
It features quite a wealth of additional apps to power editing LaTeX,
and for the moment is in the form of a Slax livecd, so that anyone can
preview it. In the future, maybe, I will release it as a mountable
linux package, for the generic Linux distrom, however keeping its main
feature, i.e. portability.
Check it out at
http://www.mat.uniroma1.it/~caminati
To my knowledge, this is the first project of this kind, so any
feedback is welcome.
Regards,
Marco.
t.m.tr...@gmail.com
outdated. TeXLive 2008 can be run in portable mode right out of the
box on *nix and Windows.
Cheers,
Tomek
marco caminati
I must say that I tried TeXLive 2007, not 2008 yet, but guessing on
filesize I bet the following applies as well.
There are indeed very good reasons, of course according to my priority
list.
I am a lifelong supporter of KISS principle, and I don't like the way
main LaTeX distros are developing.
TeXLive is not portable: portable means, in crude words, that you plug
your usb key in a PC and can work straight away, leaving no trace you
aren't aware of on your host pc when you're finished. TeXLive, even in
so-called portable mode, requires an installation. MiKTeX is even
worse. Whoever has tried to work in a shared pc environment knows what
I mean.
And developers should consider that there are people out there who are
bound to work on shared pc; real portability is to me a good occasion
to develop according to good habits, one for example is that a
portable app should hunt for computing power, not storage space. I'm
digressing anyway.
I feel that this issue is connected with the ridicolously gigantic
sizes of modern distros. Over one GB to be able to write LaTeX?
There's no need to comment on it.
My TeTeX package is 40 MB and just works as soon as you've finished
downloading it, if you're running Slax. I have plans to release a
package similarly working in most common linux distro if there's
request. Or you can download the full 300 MB image, which boots from
USB flash on an average PC in less than a minute and compiles LaTeX
easy and FAST.
I'm not boasting here (after all I'm just patiently assembling pieces
of other people's work, albeit in an organic suite), just want to
point out what looks crazy to me.
Regarding the out-dateness of TeTeX, I recall that most of updating in
latex distro regards packages, i.e. tex sources, and a small amount
regards binaries. Since tetex uses kpathsea, you can take advantage of
packages from other distro simply pointing an environment variable to
include those packages. So I felt that it was good to go for small
size and stick to tetex, accordingly with my disliking of new distros.
That's it, sorry for having got it boring.
Regards.
Mariano Suárez-Alvarez
> On Sep 19, 8:43 am, t.m.trzec...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Is there any particular reason you've chosen TeTeX? It seems terribly
> > outdated. TeXLive 2008 can be run in portable mode right out of the
> > box on *nix and Windows.
>
> > Cheers,
>
> > Tomek
>
> I must say that I tried TeXLive 2007, not 2008 yet, but guessing on
> filesize I bet the following applies as well.
> There are indeed very good reasons, of course according to my priority
> list.
> I am a lifelong supporter of KISS principle, and I don't like the way
> main LaTeX distros are developing.
> TeXLive is not portable: portable means, in crude words, that you plug
> your usb key in a PC and can work straight away, leaving no trace you
> aren't aware of on your host pc when you're finished. TeXLive, even in
> so-called portable mode, requires an installation.
I never tried it, but: doesn't TeXLive come in a live cd form,
which you can use simply by putting the cd in your cd drive?
As for its being huge, well, I would be surprised if the TeXLive
infrastructure were not very flexible, so that building
small versions (ones not including all sources, or support
for and documentation in all languages, etc) would be
simply a matter of reconfiguration.
-- m
Robin Fairbairns
>On Sep 19, 8:43 am, t.m.trzec...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Is there any particular reason you've chosen TeTeX? It seems terribly
>> outdated. TeXLive 2008 can be run in portable mode right out of the
>> box on *nix and Windows.
>
>filesize I bet the following applies as well.
>There are indeed very good reasons, of course according to my priority
>list.
>I am a lifelong supporter of KISS principle, and I don't like the way
>main LaTeX distros are developing.
>TeXLive is not portable: portable means, in crude words, that you plug
>your usb key in a PC and can work straight away, leaving no trace you
>aren't aware of on your host pc when you're finished. TeXLive, even in
>so-called portable mode, requires an installation. MiKTeX is even
>worse. Whoever has tried to work in a shared pc environment knows what
>I mean.
texlive (certainly up to 2007) has been distributed with a live disc
(there aren't distributed discs this time around). i first saw this
principle (and it's not changed since) in 1996 -- sebastian rahtz and
i were at a meeting in russia. seb stuck a tex live cd in the drive
of a dec alpha workstation, and ran the system from it.
given that there are binaries for ridiculously many different
architectures, and many more (large) tex applications, the whole thing
no longer fits on a cd. but it surely fits on my usb key (and would
rattle around on my wife's 20gb key).
(fwiw, there's a published recipe for making a miktex-on-a-usb-key --
see http://mirror.ctan.org/info/MiKTeX+Ghostscript+GSview+USB-drive-HOWTO.txt )
>And developers should consider that there are people out there who are
>bound to work on shared pc; real portability is to me a good occasion
>to develop according to good habits, one for example is that a
>portable app should hunt for computing power, not storage space. I'm
>digressing anyway.
even though storage space is becoming more readily available, more
quickly than is cpu power?
>I feel that this issue is connected with the ridicolously gigantic
>sizes of modern distros. Over one GB to be able to write LaTeX?
>There's no need to comment on it.
to _run_ latex on alpha-linux, amd64-freebsd, hppa-hpux, i386-freebsd,
i386-linux, i386-openbsd, i386-solaris, mips-irix, powerpc-aix,
powerpc-linux, sparc-linux, sparc-solaris, universal-darwin,
x86_64-linux, the simple size isn't terribly surprising. oh, i missed
win32 binaries.
>My TeTeX package is 40 MB and just works as soon as you've finished
>downloading it, if you're running Slax. I have plans to release a
>package similarly working in most common linux distro if there's
>request. Or you can download the full 300 MB image, which boots from
>USB flash on an average PC in less than a minute and compiles LaTeX
>easy and FAST.
"boots"? you have an operating system in your 300 mbytes? you expect
people, who've no account on a system, to be able/allowed to reboot
their own software into a machine?
>I'm not boasting here (after all I'm just patiently assembling pieces
>of other people's work, albeit in an organic suite), just want to
>point out what looks crazy to me.
>
>Regarding the out-dateness of TeTeX, I recall that most of updating in
>latex distro regards packages, i.e. tex sources, and a small amount
>regards binaries.
where have you been in the years since thomas gave up? there has been
massive development in pdftex, and two entire new programs have
appeared -- one of which (xetex) has made a *very* big impact --
showing signs of fulfilling much of the promise we detected in omega
in the early 90s.
>Since tetex uses kpathsea, you can take advantage of
>packages from other distro simply pointing an environment variable to
>include those packages. So I felt that it was good to go for small
>size and stick to tetex, accordingly with my disliking of new distros.
good to see you've not made the mistake the polish people made in
litex ( http://www-stary.gust.org.pl/BachoTeX/2006/abstracts/39en.html )
despite the fact that tds has a tendency to gobble up disc space...
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge
Ulrike Fischer
>> Is there any particular reason you've chosen TeTeX? It seems terribly
>> outdated. TeXLive 2008 can be run in portable mode right out of the
>> box on *nix and Windows.
> I must say that I tried TeXLive 2007, not 2008 yet, but guessing on
> filesize I bet the following applies as well.
> There are indeed very good reasons, of course according to my priority
> list.
> I am a lifelong supporter of KISS principle, and I don't like the way
> main LaTeX distros are developing.
> TeXLive is not portable: portable means, in crude words, that you plug
> your usb key in a PC and can work straight away, leaving no trace you
> aren't aware of on your host pc when you're finished. TeXLive, even in
> so-called portable mode, requires an installation.
But what sort of installation? Miktex certainly writes things in the
registry and that makes it difficult to make a portable version. But I
installed luatex in addition to my miktex and this only involved making
some folders, adapting a texmf.cnf and running makelsr. I doubt very
much that it is really necessary to stick to the outdated binaries of
TeTeX to get a portable TeX.
> Regarding the out-dateness of TeTeX, I recall that most of updating in
> latex distro regards packages, i.e. tex sources, and a small amount
> regards binaries.
There are thousands of packages and only a small number of binaries. So
naturally most updates involves packages. But they have been major
changes in the binaries and I at least would never consider to use a
TeX-System that doesn't include a recent xetex + xdvipdfmx and a recent
pdftex (at least 1.40).
--
Ulrike Fischer
marco caminati
> marco caminati <spam.camin...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>
> >On Sep 19, 8:43 am, t.m.trzec...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Is there any particular reason you've chosen TeTeX? It seems terribly
> >> outdated. TeXLive 2008 can be run in portable mode right out of the
> >> box on *nix and Windows.
>
> >I must say that I tried TeXLive 2007, not 2008 yet, but guessing on
> >filesize I bet the following applies as well.
> >There are indeed very good reasons, of course according to my priority
> >list.
> >I am a lifelong supporter of KISS principle, and I don't like the way
> >main LaTeX distros are developing.
> >TeXLive is not portable: portable means, in crude words, that you plug
> >your usb key in a PC and can work straight away, leaving no trace you
> >aren't aware of on your host pc when you're finished. TeXLive, even in
> >so-called portable mode, requires an installation. MiKTeX is even
> >worse. Whoever has tried to work in a shared pc environment knows what
> >I mean.
>
> texlive (certainly up to 2007) has been distributed with a live disc
> (there aren't distributed discs this time around). i first saw this
> principle (and it's not changed since) in 1996 -- sebastian rahtz and
> i were at a meeting in russia. seb stuck a tex live cd in the drive
> of a dec alpha workstation, and ran the system from it.
>
Ok, I'm sorry I'm in a rush and don't have much time to elaborate.
The point here is that the liveCD you're talking about was built
around texlive, to showcase it, and could not integrate with an
existing os, while PortableLatex is a 40MB standalone module which can
run on any slax 6 distro.
I distribute it in the form of a livecd only because I suppose slax,
yet outstanding, is not so widespread.
Moreover I thought this way I could kill a few birds with one stone,
being able to showcase Portable Latex, plus many project I find nice,
such as Slax and JEdit, in one shot. Finally, since I could this way
submit a unitary environment to comfortable edit, because I find that
to have full control over latex you have to get many scattered pieces
of software: latex, ghostscript, a good editor, etc..., and link them
together to work with ease and speed. Obviously I'm partial here, I
like this environment I have and just wanted to share, especially with
newcomers who might get bewildered at first approach with latex. It
gives them the chanche to try a "full latexing" straight away. This
is, after all, the great thing about liveCDs.
To stress further the difference, I add that it is indeed possible to
build a similar package which mimicks slax modularity, so as to run
it, again portably, on any linux-based PC; I'm working on it, see my
homepage.
> given that there are binaries for ridiculously many different
> architectures, and many more (large) tex applications, the whole thing
> no longer fits on a cd. but it surely fits on my usb key (and would
> rattle around on my wife's 20gb key).
>
> (fwiw, there's a published recipe for making a miktex-on-a-usb-key --
> seehttp://mirror.ctan.org/info/MiKTeX+Ghostscript+GSview+USB-drive-HOWTO...)
>
> even though storage space is becoming more readily available, more
> quickly than is cpu power?
Yes, all that notwithstanding. There are fat (diskless) clients, for
example. There are solid-state only notebooks (which I like), on which
writings should be limited.
>
> >I feel that this issue is connected with the ridicolously gigantic
> >sizes of modern distros. Over one GB to be able to write LaTeX?
> >There's no need to comment on it.
>
> to _run_ latex on alpha-linux, amd64-freebsd, hppa-hpux, i386-freebsd,
> i386-linux, i386-openbsd, i386-solaris, mips-irix, powerpc-aix,
> powerpc-linux, sparc-linux, sparc-solaris, universal-darwin,
> x86_64-linux, the simple size isn't terribly surprising. oh, i missed
> win32 binaries.
>
Ok, I'm not saying TexLive should disappear (maybe my tone let suppose
it, I agree), I'm just saying there are PC-based people who could find
nice (I do) to avoid installation.
> "boots"? you have an operating system in your 300 mbytes? you expect
> people, who've no account on a system, to be able/allowed to reboot
> their own software into a machine?
>
See the first part about why liveCD. I just add that there are such
situations, for example (again) when dealing with thick clients or
diskless machines.
> >I'm not boasting here (after all I'm just patiently assembling pieces
> >of other people's work, albeit in an organic suite), just want to
> >point out what looks crazy to me.
>
> >Regarding the out-dateness of TeTeX, I recall that most of updating in
> >latex distro regards packages, i.e. tex sources, and a small amount
> >regards binaries.
>
> where have you been in the years since thomas gave up? there has been
> massive development in pdftex, and two entire new programs have
> appeared -- one of which (xetex) has made a *very* big impact --
> showing signs of fulfilling much of the promise we detected in omega
> in the early 90s.
It's not a matter of where I have been, rather of what I use or need
in everyday work. I'm not a software engineer or similar, I'm a
mathematician, and I feel comfortable with TeTeX, for the moment. The
most advanced thing I use is PSTricks, and it works well. Many of my
colleagues work have even more basic needs.
I admit I just don't know what xetex is.
I end by saying that portable latex is nothing new, is just
repackaging, just a different approach; so I could base it on texlive
at the expenses of size (it would become roughly a 200MB thing) if
there is request. For now I have just one download, so... :)
Cheers,
marco.
Ulrich M. Schwarz
> On Sep 19, 3:02 pm, r...@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) wrote:
>> texlive (certainly up to 2007) has been distributed with a live disc
>> (there aren't distributed discs this time around). i first saw this
>> principle (and it's not changed since) in 1996 -- sebastian rahtz and i
>> were at a meeting in russia. seb stuck a tex live cd in the drive of a
>> dec alpha workstation, and ran the system from it.
>>
>>
> Ok, I'm sorry I'm in a rush and don't have much time to elaborate. The
> point here is that the liveCD you're talking about was built around
> texlive, to showcase it, and could not integrate with an existing os,
> while PortableLatex is a 40MB standalone module which can run on any
> slax 6 distro.
Please elaborate when you have the time, that does not appear to make
sense to me at all: the TeXLive live CDs contained all that was needed to
run TeX&friends, and you only needed to set some environment variables.
You didn't need reboots to another operating system, write access to fancy
places, nothing beyond the optical drive to put the disc into. I do not
understand what integration you would want form something that is designed
to leave only minimal traces on the system.
Sincerely,
Ulrich
t.m.tr...@gmail.com
> I end by saying that portable latex is nothing new, is just
> repackaging, just a different approach;
To me this is something new. Perhaps it was possible to use TeX
installation in a portable manner before but not without some effort.
Having something like that prepackaged is a good thing, imo.
I'm trying to assemble a portable TeXing evironment for Windows right
now. With the newly released TL2008 this should be much easier than
before because it already comes with appropriate launchers for
portable use. That's why I asked about it.
> so I could base it on texlive
> at the expenses of size (it would become roughly a 200MB thing) if
> there is request. For now I have just one download, so... :)
I would be very much interested in this. In fact, some time ago I
looked for a Live CD Linux distro that would be LaTeX oriented,
because I wanted to try out some Linux-only tools. I couldn't find
anything like this.
I don't know what are your plans but if you would like to expand your
project to Windows as well, I'm willing to contribute. I've already
made portable versions of some editors (WinShell and LEd) in
PortableApps format, mainly for personal use. Soon, I will repackage
GSview. Together with TL2008 and PortableApps Suite (including
SumatraPDF viewer that has now support for synctex) I should have
quite comfy TeX evironment rather soon.
Cheers,
Tomek
mpg
> I am a lifelong supporter of KISS principle, and I don't like the way
> main LaTeX distros are developing.
I won't try to convince you otherwise, but I'd just like to mention the
following for information:
> TeXLive is not portable: portable means, in crude words, that you plug
> your usb key in a PC and can work straight away, leaving no trace you
> aren't aware of on your host pc when you're finished. TeXLive, even in
> so-called portable mode, requires an installation. MiKTeX is even
> worse. Whoever has tried to work in a shared pc environment knows what
> I mean.
The script tl-portable (not an installer option) provides a pure portable
TeX Live, provided that it is run from a writable location (eg a USB
stick).
Concerning the size, you may want to loke a the various schemes,
particularaly the teTeX scheme: teTeX3 is indeed rather old, and its
binaries too.
Manuel.
marco caminati
No, even in live mode you needed to set the texmf-var directory and go through a "short install" procedure lasting some minute.
The really fundamental point here is that in this procedure the texmf-var directory created referred to the CD, thus creating a link between this directory and where the distribution resided at install time, i.e. CD, thus breaking portability, since if you eg changed the mount point of the cd things stopped working.
This is a pain in the ass to me; I really prefer having my monolithic small package to move it wherever I want, eg to a faster media than a CD, and go without a nuisance.
That's a matter of taste, so if you don't bother about all this, PortableLatex has no point for you.
To me the difference is substantial.
Regarding reboot, it's not necessary; please don't make me repeat myself but read previous messages. I started with an ISO form because I meant it for the real beginner to try out latex immediately. If you just want the package you extract it from the ISO, and mount it. It's a bit clumsy, but as soon as I can I will post the separate module, both in slax form and generic linux form.
Regards,
Marco.
PS: I'm experiencing problems with google groups, so this could be a
repost.
marco caminati
> The script tl-portable (not an installer option) provides a pure portable
> TeX Live, provided that it is run from a writable location (eg a USB
> stick).
Show me the executable, not a script! :)
Anyway, I've got no banwidth to check it out, assuming I've got to
download over a GB, right?
That discourages me.
Regards,
Marco.
marco caminati
Good to find someone interested. As I say on my homepage, windos is more
complicated as with portability, but I think feasible. In slax it was
after all easy to do it. But for windows I probably should dedicate some
time to it, and at the moment I can't.
I don't even know if it's worth it, I'm a happy Linux user now, and
scripting to bind applications together would be much more clumsy in
windows.
As for GSview, my livecd includes it (v 4.9). The weird thing is that
now even windows version is portable: check out
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/gsviewen.htm#Portable_Application
Bye,
Marco.
Turgut Durduran
> I'm trying to assemble a portable TeXing evironment for Windows right
> now. With the newly released TL2008 this should be much easier than
> before because it already comes with appropriate launchers for
> portable use. That's why I asked about it.
that would be what I would I find useful too. If I can carry (on a USB
stick) LaTeX along with portable firefox, thunderbird, pdf viewers,
gaim, portaputty, I would be a happy person. I can put together some
papers while on the go (I often am) either outside of my institute or
simply in places within the institute where there only locked-down
computers . (so , do release your PortableApps compatible stuff :))
Turgut
Peter Flynn
> On 2008-09-20, t.m.tr...@gmail.com <t.m.tr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm trying to assemble a portable TeXing evironment for Windows right
>> now. With the newly released TL2008 this should be much easier than
>> before because it already comes with appropriate launchers for
>> portable use. That's why I asked about it.
>
> that would be what I would I find useful too.
To be useful, the stick should have Windows, Linux, and OS X binaries on
it (including editors for all three platforms), and some simple method
of specifying or detecting which ones to use (eg search path). Otherwise
you're limited to a single platform again...
///Peter
BTW does anyone know if
a) TL2008 has fixed the problem with not accepting spaces in filename
and directoryname arguments?
b) TeXnicCenter has fixed the problem with not looking in the right
place for MikTeX?
Lars Madsen
>
> b) TeXnicCenter has fixed the problem with not looking in the right
> place for MikTeX?
have texniccenter ever done that? All the versions I've seen you've have
to specify it by hand (in a wizard though)
whereas Led had no problems finding it from the system path or whatever
/daleif
Peter Flynn
>
>>
>> b) TeXnicCenter has fixed the problem with not looking in the right
>> place for MikTeX?
>
> have texniccenter ever done that? All the versions I've seen you've have
> to specify it by hand (in a wizard though)
I seem to remember one version in the past which *did* look in the right
place. I can't understand why it doesn't, when the default MikTeX
installation path is known, although I do know that it changed a few
times. It's a major block to installing a working system for beginners.
Part of the problem is it asks for something like "the path to the LaTeX
binaries" which is a phrase only a computer scientist will understand.
Every normal user I have watched at this point -- unassisted -- simply
says "WTF is a 'binary'?", and then gives up, uninstalls MikTeX and
TeXnicCenter, and goes back to using Word. No user should *ever* be
asked with a phrase like that.
It ought to ask for "the folder where you installed the MiKTeX program",
and it should have the ability to recursively search the path the user
clicks on, in order to locate the bin directory within it, if that
wasn't the path given. But it should also scan well-known locations
first, before asking.
> whereas Led had no problems finding it from the system path or whatever
Never used Led. Must check it out some time.
///Peter
mpg
> mpg wrote:
>
>> The script tl-portable (not an installer option) provides a pure portable
>> TeX Live, provided that it is run from a writable location (eg a USB
>> stick).
>
> Show me the executable, not a script! :)
What do you mean? The script has svn:executable set ;-)
> Anyway, I've got no banwidth to check it out, assuming I've got to
> download over a GB, right?
> That discourages me.
>
Actually, you don't have to dl the full TeX Live: you can use the network
installer to install only the collections that suit your needs on a USB
stick, copy the script on this USB stick too, and here you are (I suppose,
not tested myself yet).
Manuel.
> Regards,
> Marco.
mpg
> Part of the problem is it asks for something like "the path to the LaTeX
> binaries" which is a phrase only a computer scientist will understand.
> Every normal user I have watched at this point -- unassisted -- simply
> says "WTF is a 'binary'?", and then gives up, uninstalls MikTeX and
> TeXnicCenter, and goes back to using Word. No user should *ever* be
> asked with a phrase like that.
>
I recently had a group of students no even install but just use TeXnicCenter
for the first time and I can confirm this step of the wizard is *very*
confusing. Not only you have to know or guess what a binary is, but then
you have to guess that they are in MikTeX 2.X\miktex\bin, which is not so
obvious (I mean, the intermediate miktex dir) if you fdon't already know
it.
> It ought to ask for "the folder where you installed the MiKTeX program",
> and it should have the ability to recursively search the path the user
> clicks on, in order to locate the bin directory within it, if that
> wasn't the path given. But it should also scan well-known locations
> first, before asking.
>
I fully agree. (Not that Id like to write the code myself, just speaking
form the average user point of view).
>> whereas Led had no problems finding it from the system path or whatever
>
> Never used Led. Must check it out some time.
>
Never used it either, but heard good things about it from a friend. But it
may be worth noticing it's free of charge, but not free software, it it
matters to you.
Manuel.
Lars Madsen
>>
> Never used it either, but heard good things about it from a friend. But it
> may be worth noticing it's free of charge, but not free software, it it
> matters to you.
>
> Manuel.
>
I've also recently heard interesting stuff about a new editor: texworks,
that might be worth checking out.
--
/daleif (remove RTFSIGNATURE from email address)
LaTeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
LaTeX book: http://www.imf.au.dk/system/latex/bog/ (in Danish)
Remember to post minimal examples, see URL below
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=minxampl
http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini-en.html
mpg
>> Never used it either, but heard good things about it from a friend. But
>> it may be worth noticing it's free of charge, but not free software, it
>> it matters to you.
>>
> I've also recently heard interesting stuff about a new editor: texworks,
> that might be worth checking out.
>
I've tried a svn version a month ago, and it looks very interesting indeed.
The only problem is, it's still in devel phase and not yet released...
Manuel.
Turgut Durduran
>
> To be useful, the stick should have Windows, Linux, and OS X binaries on
> it (including editors for all three platforms), and some simple method
> of specifying or detecting which ones to use (eg search path). Otherwise
> you're limited to a single platform again...
sure, ideally we want that too. But it would be useful "enough" to have it
Windows only too since that is a very limiting, disfunctional OS. If I can
get access to a linux machine, changes are I can get a decent way of
accessing my own machine with X forwarding etc.
marco caminati
> > Never used it either, but heard good things about it from a friend. But it
> > may be worth noticing it's free of charge, but not free software, it it
> > matters to you.
>
> > Manuel.
>
> I've also recently heard interesting stuff about a new editor: texworks,
> that might be worth checking out.
>
Ok, my two cents are for JEdit. I feel better having a very powerful
general purpose text editor which can do anything a dedicated editor
can, plus what else you want it to do.
Emacs gives me headaches, JEdit is a good compromise. I'm sticking
with it.
What's more. it is the way to go when fantasizing about multi-platform
LaTeX environments, since it's in Java. A little bit slower when
launching, I have to say.
Oh, and GPL, too. Of course it's included in my distro, with some good
plugins/macro/shortcuts. After trying all the Led, TexnicCenter,
Texmaker, I recommend it.
marco caminati
> Le (on) samedi 20 septembre 2008 21:29, marco caminati a écrit (wrote) :
>
> > mpg wrote:
>
> >> The script tl-portable (not an installer option) provides a pure portable
> >> TeX Live, provided that it is run from a writable location (eg a USB
> >> stick).
>
> > Show me the executable, not a script! :)
>
> What do you mean? The script has svn:executable set ;-)
I was (not so seriously) being skeptical about the self-proclaimed
portable LaTeX distros, since I've so far not seen any true one. :)
cheers
t.m.tr...@gmail.com
> Good to find someone interested. As I say on my homepage, windos is more
> complicated as with portability, but I think feasible. In slax it was
> after all easy to do it. But for windows I probably should dedicate some
> time to it, and at the moment I can't.
Well, as I said above I'm working on a portable Windows setup for
myself anyway. If my efforts would be in any way useful, I don't mind
sharing. I'm sure that there are also other people doing the same
thing so maybe I would be a good idea to have one place/project that
addresses portable needs of TeX users. Just a thought.
> As for GSview, my livecd includes it (v 4.9). The weird thing is that
> now even windows version is portable: check out
>
> http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/gsviewen.htm#Portable_Application
Thanks, I know about this already. However, this is just a howto and
most users don't bother with such things until they can get
prepackaged solution.
Cheers,
Tomek
t.m.tr...@gmail.com
> To be useful, the stick should have Windows, Linux, and OS X binaries on
> it (including editors for all three platforms), and some simple method
> of specifying or detecting which ones to use (eg search path). Otherwise
> you're limited to a single platform again...
Sure, having multi-platform system would be great but I disagree that
single platform solution is useless. I use PortableApps, which are
windows only, for quite some time now and I find it so useful that I
even make portable versions of some applications on my own. For me
this greatly simplifies software management because I need to maitain
only one software stack and can use it on multiple PCs.
> BTW does anyone know if
>
> a) TL2008 has fixed the problem with not accepting spaces in filename
> and directoryname arguments?
If you ask about this:
pdflatex "name with spaces.tex"
then yes, it works (tested with portable TL2008 :)
> b) TeXnicCenter has fixed the problem with not looking in the right
> place for MikTeX?
From the release notes of TeXnicCenter 1 Beta 7.50 (21 June 2008):
http://www.toolscenter.org/news/106-texniccenter-1-beta-750-released
"Major bug fixes in this release:
[...]
Profile wizard does not recognize newer versions of Miktex or
Ghostscript."
Cheers
Tomek
Dan
>
> BTW does anyone know if
>
> a) TL2008 has fixed the problem with not accepting spaces in filename
> and directoryname arguments?
Which problem? You can read about some problems on the TeX
Live mailing list, archived at
http://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/
The only significant problem recently has been with texdoc trying
to open Acrobat Reader on some .pdf file in
"\Program Files\TeXLive\2008\texmf[dist\doc\latex\..."
and this is probably fixed by now. That doesn't mean there won't
be others. There seem to be no problems with the programs in
TL, provided they only call other TL programs.
I was rather surprised to see read problems windows users were
having with texdoc: I have been using TeX Live 2008 on WinXP for
almost a month without any such problems. On the other hand,
I have never installed any version of TeX under "\Program Files\"
and, having observed various programs over the years having
trouble with that space, I never will.
I also set an environmental variable TEMP to \tmp to avoid it
being in "\Documents and Settings\username\" (and after
MiKTeX's dvipdfm had trouble with its temp files back a few
versions, I will always do that). I do the same with HOME.
Sadly, TL2008 sets two significant directories to ~/.telive2008/texmf-
*
and the "~" expands to "Documents and Settings\<username>\"
instead of the value of %HOME%. Thus I had to manually change
those settings in texmf.cnf after I upgraded to TL2008.
Dan
marco caminati
portable latex. So now you have
1) The new .tgz package runnable by (I hope) almost all modern PC-
based linux distributions (Debian, RedHat, Ubuntu, etc...).
You extract the ext2 image, mount it anywhere and run all the portable
latex tools in a separate console window. Other console instances will
be totally unaware of it. See (the very short) readme for details.
2) The previously available .iso image which can be used
multivalently:
a) By burning it onto a bootable CD
b) By copying its contents onto a device and booting it (see
readme for frugal install; grub4dos to make a device bootable is
supplied)
c) By using live mods inside it on slax 6 if you're already
running it.
As always, check it out at
http://www.mat.uniroma1.it/~caminati
I'll be glad to receive any kind of feedback, especially by people
using 1) on a linux PC with no previously-installed LaTeX on it.
Regards,
Marco.