[OS X TeX] MacTex Distribution Updates?

[Richard Koch]

Michael,

> Hello,
>
> is there anywhere a announcement of new releases of the "MacTeX  
> Distribution" anywhere on the http://www.tug.org/mactex/ Website?

I announce updates on this list, but you are certainly right that  
there needs to be information on the mactex web page. We'll fix that.

Here's the story. There is an "official" full MacTeX on www.tug.org/mactex 
. In addition, there are smaller pieces of this package linked from  
"MacTeX Updates and Alternate Pieces", which leads to www.tug.org/mactex/morepackages.html 
.

The second page does have a date. The current date is August 26, 2007,  
which is close enough to September that I listed the date as September  
in the first install dialog. I tend to update these packages every two  
months or so, and hope to have a new update soon. I've been waiting  
for a newer version of LaTeXiT, but may soon relent.

For stability, I don't update the TeX Live piece of the full MacTeX,  
but I update the remaining pieces of the full MacTeX (like front ends,  
ghostscript, etc.) when I make these semimonthly updates. The  
exception is Beamer, which I updated in TeX Live because it was broken  
in the original version. But the updates page contains a package named  
TeXLive-2007-Dev, which is a snapshot of the svn repository when I  
make the updates.

Updating to TeXLive-2007-Dev has worked for most people, although it  
might cause trouble because nobody checks that the repository is  
consistent on a daily basis. That is why the TeX Live in the full  
MacTeX remains unchanged until the yearly updates, which ARE carefully  
checked by the people maintaining TeX Live.

Many experts realize that it would be nice to have a better mechanism  
for making partial TeX Live updates during the year, but so far ...

Dick Koch
koch at math.uoregon.edu