[OS X TeX] The Future of TeX on Mac OS X

[Alan Litchfield]

Gary beat me to the post.

I tried fink and got frustrated with the non-standard file locations/ 
directory names. I never actually used Gerben's installation, mainly  
because I use LaTeX on Windows, Linux and MacOS X. I wanted a nice  
uniform installation and TeXLive gives me that.


On 18/01/2007, at 3:41 PM, Gary L. Gray wrote:

>
> On Jan 17, 2007, at 9:12 PM, Thomas Bohn wrote:
>
>> Or the bloated MacTeX package, which is nice for starters but not if
>> you actually knows what you need and what you don't need.
>
> I have been using LaTeX since 1989 and I would generally be  
> considered well beyond a beginner. With that said, I find the  
> latest TeXLive package created by Dick Koch to be wonderfully easy  
> to install and very complete. I like to spend my time writing, not  
> messing with TeX (ok, sometimes it's fun to mess with TeX, but  
> still ...).

ditto

>
>> BTW the
>> unsupported notice will make i-Installer extremely scary for
>> beginners.
>
> Why don't you want to simply install the current release of  
> TeXLive? It is supported, complete, and requires just a couple of  
> clicks to install. In addition, if one installs the MacTeX  
> Additions, you also get editors, previewers, bibliography  
> organizers, spell checkers, and maybe more. What could be nicer  
> than this?
>

Raises an interesting question though. I don't know if it was ever  
Gerben's intention to make life simpler/less scary for beginners.  
 From what he has said publicly, I thought Gerben's intention was to  
provide a system for himself to make keeping up to date with updates  
easier and less problematic, and if other people found that to be the  
case too, then good. Gerben has said he will continue to update the  
installer system when he finds a need to do so, but does not provide  
a public support service - which is perfectly reasonable.

The TeXLive distributions are, on the other hand, intended to make it  
easier for inexperienced users to use LaTeX, as well those who have  
used it for years.

Alan

------------------------- Helpful Info -------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
List Reminders & Etiquette: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/