Anyone recommend a Tex application?

[Tony Su]

Just wondering,
If anyone has been using any Tex/LaTex app for awhile, what you're
using and what you like about it.

Tony

[David Brown]

Post by Tony Su
If anyone has been using any Tex/LaTex app for awhile, what you're
using and what you like about it.

Presuming you're looking for a TeX/LaTeX distribution (the 'X' is also
uppercase), and not just some associated app... Most distros have now
moved to TeX Live. It can certainly be installed from the TeX Live
distro itself, but you're better off using a build from your distro
(or at least for your distro) if available.

David

[Kevin Keane Subscription]

I'm generally a big fan of using the distro-provided packages, instead of building your own. It avoids a lot of hassles.

But when it comes to Tex Live, I'm a convert, and now generally recommend installing it from tug.org. I support some very heavy LaTeX power users - it's the main tool at least some our Math professors use for their publications, and most of the other mathematical open-source software they use integrates with emacs and TexLive. And I also had to replace the distro version of emacs with a built-from-source version.

There are two main reasons:

First, the version RedHat has is ancient - so ancient that there were incompatibilities with the latest versions of some proof management software. RedHat has a general problem with ancient SW versions, so this might be distro-specific.

Second, the distro versions of TexLive are invariably incomplete; it only includes a few hundred modules - and distros also generally remove the TexLive package management tool, tlmgr. If you want any of the modules that aren't supported by your distro, you are pretty much out of luck.

The version from tug.org is, obviously, the latest one, and more importantly, it includes thousands of modules right out of the gate, and you can add more as needed.

The drawback is that if you think that TexLive from your distro is massive, the tug.org one is gargantuan, to the point that I was worried about disk space on a brand-new machine. The download and install also take a very long time; plan on running it overnight.

As an aside, the problem with old software versions is becoming a real very serious issue in the RedHat world in general, not just with TexLive. PHP 5.3 and Kernel 3.10 even in the latest release - really? RH addressed some of that with their SCLs, but the problem runs deep, and it's gotten to the point where RH and derivatives doesn't even install on some modern hardware, such as AMD Ryzen 3 CPUs.

I hear RH 8 is now in alpha. I hope it's not too little, too late.

Kevin Keane
Whom the IT Pros Call
760-721-8339 

-----Original message-----

Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2018 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: Anyone recommend a Tex application?

Post by Tony Su
If anyone has been using any Tex/LaTex app for awhile, what you're
using and what you like about it.

Presuming you're looking for a TeX/LaTeX distribution (the 'X' is also
uppercase), and not just some associated app...  Most distros have now
moved to TeX Live.  It can certainly be installed from the TeX Live
distro itself, but you're better off using a build from your distro
(or at least for your distro) if available.
David
--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

[N.J. Thomas]

Post by Tony Su
If anyone has been using any Tex/LaTex app for awhile

I used Thomas Esser's teTeX for about 15 years (on SunOS, then Solaris,
then FreeBSD), and then switched over to TeX Live for the last 8 years
or so. FreeBSD kept teTeX around for a few years after he stopped
updating it I believe, I switched over when Tex Live became the
"default" in the ports system.

Post by Tony Su
and what you like about it.

I have every single TeX/LaTeX document I ever wrote. I like that I can
take a document I wrote 20+ years ago and compile/print it and have it
exactly the same as when I wrote it.

Thomas

[Tracy Reed]

Post by N.J. Thomas
I have every single TeX/LaTeX document I ever wrote. I like that I can
take a document I wrote 20+ years ago and compile/print it and have it
exactly the same as when I wrote it.

That is awesome. That's what I love about the un*x tools in general. For
example, I really love the fact that vi/vim is still a useful tool and
that I've been reaping ROI on having learned it all those years ago. I
cringe to think of all of those people mousing around and wasting time
in editors which don't support regex or which have a relatively limited
lifespan before they have to move onto something else.