[tex-live] some remarks

[Karl Berry]

Hi Vladimir,

    i just re-built and re-submitted sparc-solaris binaries (now built on

Great!  I will give them a try ASAP.

       as far as i understand, this is because lcdf-typetools build
       process does not use the "libstdc++ hack" used elsewhere to link
       statically with libstdc++. hopefully it will be fixed...

Funny, I thought that was in there.  Will have to look.  Meanwhile, it's
no worse than it was last year.

   sunfreeware.com libgcc package, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH will need to be
   set to include /usr/local/lib to find them)

Can you link with -R/usr/local/lib so that people don't have to set
LD_LIBRARY_PATH?  If the libraries are there, they'll just be used.

    2) xdvi-motif.bin links to libiconv.so.2 which is again absent in

libiconv was a hassle for Solaris users last year.  I don't think
it is actually necessary or used in xdvi, it's pulled in by some
sequence of libraries. 

     or maybe i shall try to uninstall libiconv and rebuild.

That sounds good.  On my Solaris 2.8, there is /usr/lib/libiconv.so, but
no iconv.so.2.

    4) pkfix uses a wild and ugly hack in it's first 2 lines to run perl,

That wild and ugly hack has actually been the standard way to invoke
Perl from something that might be interpreted by either perl or sh ever
since Perl was invented.  No change needed.

    5) texi2html contains a compile-time path of perl - which shall be
       replaced with "#!/usr/bin/env perl" too

Yes.  Sigh.  I still don't know why we bother with the Texinfo programs.
texi2html in particular has zilch to do with TeX.  Why do we have it?

Thanks,
Karl