additional texmf tree for all users (was Re: [OS X TeX] Beginner help with TeXshop/MacTex needed)

[Victor Ivrii]

On 8/28/06, William Adams <will.adams at frycomm.com> wrote:
> On Aug 28, 2006, at 8:02 AM, Rowland McDonnell wrote:
>
> > Thanks for your suggestion - but as I understand it, that would limit
> > the additions to one user only.  Or have I missed something?
>
> Well, I've just tested my idea and moving a personal texmf tree to /
> Users/Shared/texmf and then linking to it using the command
>
> ln -s /Users/Shared/texmf/ ~/Library/texmf
>
> works (making an alias however doesn't --- when I tried this with an
> alias it couldn't find varwidth.sty which is only in my personal
> texmf tree).
>
> Aside from Victor's concern about lots of people having write access,
> I don't think there'd be any drawbacks of note, modulo removing the
> option for customization for an individual user --- I'd welcome
> correction on this.

Actually for THE individual user. Everyone else could have his/her own
~/Library/texmf tree on the top of this but the user whose tree is
shared should 1) Make all the related directories executable by others
and all such files readable by others and also should think about how
his/her personal tree changes would affect others. Looks like
unnecessary headache for me.

Pseudo-user Shared exists (at least almost) for sure anyway and
personal directories should contain only personal staff (not exactly a
strict rule but I prefer to follow it)





-- 
========================
Victor Ivrii, Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto
http://www.math.toronto.edu/ivrii
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