[OS X TeX] MacTeX 2012 installs Ghostscript binaries into /usr/local/bin?

[Richard Koch]

Misty,

MacTeX has ALWAYS installed Ghostscript binaries and certain ImageMagick binaries
in /usr/local/bin.

The original MacTeX gave users no choice about this. After a couple of years, MacTeX
was divided into pieces using a "Custom Install" option. After that, users could choose
not to install Ghostscript and/or ImageMagick. Users who already installed Ghostscript
elsewhere wouldn't install the Ghostscript portion of MacTeX.

Still more recently, the ImageMagick piece was pared down to just the "convert"
binary. This allowed us to remove all libraries we used to install in /usr/local/lib.
So now the Ghostscript and ImageMagick pieces do not install any libraries and
only install four binaries:

	gs-X11, gs-noX11, gs, convert

in /usr/local/bin. (Certain other support files are installed in /usr/local).
Here gs is a symbolic link to gs-X11 or gs-noX11 depending
on whether the user has installed X11.

BasicTeX ONLY INSTALLS a subset of TeX Live (MacTeX installs the full
TeX Live). Users of BasicTeX who want Ghostscript or convert from ImageMagick
can obtain them from the MacTeX-Additions package, which contains our
Ghostscript and ImageMagick pieces.

Dick Koch

On Mar 26, 2013, at 11:59 AM, Misty De Meo <mistydemeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> A couple users I've spoken to have told me that the MacTeX installer
> placed some Ghostscript binaries into /usr/local/bin, along with a
> /usr/local/lib/ImageMagick-6.7.6 directory. I was wondering if this is
> intentional.
> 
> Older versions of MacTeX have kept all of its binaries in
> /usr/local/texlive/etc, along with links in /usr/texbin. MacTex 2012
> still installs all of its binaries there (including Ghostscript), so
> I'm not sure why extra copies would be installed elsewhere. (These
> extras aren't links, so two copies of Ghostscript and ImageMagick are
> present.) Having them there makes it harder for MacTeX to live
> alongside the user's own installations of things into /usr/local, or
> package managers like Homebrew that live there.
> 
> I use the BasicTeX package, which comes with some Ghostscript
> binaries, but they weren't installed into /usr/local/bin. Looks like
> only the full installer is affected.
> 
> Thanks,
> Misty
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