[OS X TeX] problem with tlmgr gui

[Alex Hamann]

Am 10.09.2008 um 20:08 schrieb Dr. Clea F. Rees:

> On 10/09/08, you seem to have written:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have now installed MacTex2008 with the GUIs and TK. I see the TK  
>> directory in /Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level/
>> I have the binaries in usr/local/bin
>> Still, envoking tlmgr --gui in Terminal.app with X11 running does  
>> not start the GUI but gives me:
>>
>> Cannot load Tk, thus the GUI cannot be started!
>> The Perl/Tk module is not shipped with the TeX Live installation.
>> You have to install it to get tlmgr GUI running. See
>> http://tug.org/texlive/distro.html for more details.
>>
>> The command line tool tlmgr seems to work fine.
>> This is my Path:
>> /usr/local/Trolltech/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/bin:/ 
>> sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/texbin
>>
>> Could it be that MacPorts is the culprit?  I do not have tk from  
>> MacPorts but a Perl 5.8 installation.
>
> Yes. MacPorts is the "culprit". I think so, anyway. Here's why:
> - you have the MacPorts perl installed. This means (given the way
>   MacPorts configures the path) that the MacPorts perl will take
>   precedence over the system perl. That is "perl" calls
>   /opt/local/bin/perl. (To confirm this try "which perl".)
> - any perl is configured to look for modules (if that's the term) in
>   certain specific places. The system perl looks in
>   /System/Library/Perl/5.8.x and /Library/Perl/5.8.x, I think. But
>   MacPorts perl will look somewhere else - I'm not sure where but
>   presumably somewhere under /opt.
> - so MacTeX Tk installer has installed the module for the system perl
>   but your default perl doesn't have Tk installed. Hence the  
> complaint.
>
> To test this, try temporarily setting path to something different e.g.
> "export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/texbin:/usr/bin:/bin" for example (in
> bash). Then check the version of perl using "which perl" and try  
> running tlmgr with the gui option.
>
> If that works, you have a few more permanent options. For example, you
> could change your PATH more permanently. I don't know how that might
> affect MacPorts, though. Or you could use MacPorts to install the
> Perl/Tk module.
>
> If you need the MacPorts version of perl, your best bet might be
> installing the Tk module for that perl, too.
>
> If it doesn't work, I'm likely just wrong about the cause of the
> problem.
>
> - cfr

Hello,

thanks for your reply. In the meantime I found your posts about your  
problems with tlmgr on this list. After deciding to get rid of  
MacPorts Perl and facing a nightmare of dependencies I just decided  
to get rid of that software once and for all. So currently I am  
deleting tons files. My only question is: opt/local will still be in  
my path, even after that directory will be deleted - is that a  
problem? Should I modify my Path? If so, how?

Best,

Alex