[OS X TeX] TeX on Snow Leopard

[Alain Schremmer]

On Aug 29, 2009, at 11:57 AM, Herbert Schulz wrote:

>
> On Aug 29, 2009, at 9:34 AM, Alain Schremmer wrote:
>
>>
>> On Aug 29, 2009, at 9:37 AM, Gary L. Gray wrote:
>>
>>> I installed Snow Leopard yesterday
>>
>> Given that my "policy" is to remain one system behind---er, right  
>> now, I am running TeXShop 2.18-svn (2.18) with gwtex under  
>> 10.4.11---I am facing an extremely delicate question: does the  
>> Snow count as a new system and should I thus move to 10.5.7 and  
>> MacTeX-2008?
>>
>> Or is it conceivable that I should wait until MacTeX-2009 is  
>> finished testing and get it over with then? Makes me shudder, but  
>> just about any excuse for putting off any updating of anything  
>> would be quite welcome---and then there is always the chance that  
>> I will drop dead before the fateful day.
>>
>> Hopeful regards
>> --schremmer
>
>
> Howdy,
>
> Hmmm... depends on how you count.

That's what I thought. What's Snow? 10.5.9?

> I seem to remember that you're using a G5 system

What a memory!

> so OS X 10.5.8 (maybe some more updates will be coming?) will be as  
> far as you can go; OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) is Intel only.

Saved! I am saved! At least for a good long time.

> On the other hand you should update since future software may be  
> for 10.5+ only.

Well yeah, but there is always that truck that may run me over before  
that.

> Best advice on updating is to always make a bootable backup of my  
> complete system in case there are problems; I use the shareware  
> SuperDuper! (it's worth the ~$28 to get the update features) but  
> Carbon Copy Cloner (contribution requested) can be used too. A nice  
> big external hard drive is fairly cheap and it can be partitioned  
> so you can keep a permanent 10.4.11 backup and use a different  
> partition for new updates.

I do make bootable backups on a 900 GigaB external with Carbon Copy  
Cloner—and I think I did send in my contribution but I have to check.  
So that should not be a problem although I forgot to partition the  
external.

> As far as MacTeX is concerned... you can install MacTeX-2008

Would you believe I did install TeXLive-2008 and TeXLive-2008-Basic  
together with the TeX Distribution System Preference Pane and  
actually used both? But then I ran into the "can't write onto aux  
file" problem I had already run into once but had forgotten how to  
cure it via the unmentionable. So, I happily reverted to good old GwTeX.

> and then MacTeX-2009 when it comes out; you can easily get back the  
> ~1GB for MacTeX-2008 once you are comfortable with 2009. Both can  
> live happily together using the TeX Distribution System Preference  
> Pane to choose the active distribution.
>
> You should also update to the latest TeXShop (presently 2.26 but a  
> new version will come out with MacTeX-2009).

Yes, I know. But, as they say, as long as it runs, don't fix it. So,  
maybe, when I am done with Reasonable Rational Functions (getting  
close) and with transferring the ancillaries of Reasonable Basic  
Algebra to the new system (ditto), I will get drunk, take a very deep  
breath and damn that truck for not showing up in time.

Grateful regards
--schremmer