[tex-live] preliminary test image for TeX Live 2005

[Karl Berry]

Greetings,

There are test images available for TeX Live 2005 at:
  http://tug.org/texlive/Images/test/
   ftp://tug.org/texlive/Images/test/ 

If you are of a mind, please try it out.  There are two images,
texlive-inst.iso and texlive-live.iso.  They contain the same material,
but the inst image can only be installed, while the live image can also
be run live, as in past years.

What has been updated:

- hundreds of packages and programs, including the base web2c, kpathsea,
  and (pdfe)tex.  No more major code changes are expected, only bug
  fixes from whatever the testers -- that's you! -- report.  So things
  should be relatively stable in that respect.

- the binaries for i386-linux, x86_64-linux, powerpc-darwin, i386-darwin.

So if you're not using one of those systems, skip it for now.  The other
Unix binaries should be along presently.  The Windows binaries have not
been updated either, so don't bother trying that for now.


Besides the missing architectures, the main thing that is not yet
updated is the documentation.  That is the main task remaining.

In lieu of the real documentation update, here is a super-brief rundown
of the most important changes.  These changes were all made in
teTeX-3.0, and TL is following suit.

- texconfig, updmap, and fmtutil now work in a "user" directory,
  specifically $HOME/.texlive2005/.  If you are installing TL for a
  multi-user system, you can alter the general system configuration by
  running texconfig-sys, updmap-sys, and fmtutil-sys.

- \ifx\pdfoutput\undefined will no longer work to detect whether pdfTeX
  is running.  Use ifpdf.sty or equivalent logic.
  
- the HOMETEXMF configuration variable is now named TEXMFHOME.

If you run into other "surprises" (aka compatibility problems), we'd
like to know.  In particular, we have had very little chance to test
actual (typical) usage of the packages and programs, so reports of any
new and unwanted behavior there would be most welcome.

In general, please email tex-live at tug.org with any problems, questions,
suggestions.

On behalf of all the many, many, contributors,
Karl
TeX Live home page: http://tug/org/texlive


P.S. You may notice that the inst image is too big to fit on a CD.
That's temporary.  Ultimately we plan to release the same thing as in
previous years: the compressed install-only version on CD, the live
version on DVD, plus a dump of CTAN and other material.