[tex-live] TL2008 installation under Windows

[Gregor Zimmermann]

Hi All,

having done a few test installations of TL2008, here are some 
questions/remarks:

0)
Installation under Windows XP and 2000 was working well and even 
malicious interruptions couldn't break the installation procedure, i.e 
it was always able to resume and finish the process.

1)
Under 'macros': 'Windows support programs' is not selected, although the 
*scheme-full* is chosen and the install is running under *Windows*.

2)
As far as I can see, the '~/texmf' under TEXMFHOME is not a problem. 
Most users have no idea what TDS is about and certainly do not know 
TEXMF* and their relevance. Therefore these options will remain 
untouched in most (Windows-)cases.
And the remark that '~' is replaced by 'HOME/USERPROFILE' is nice, but 
won't improve matters much, as those users have no clue about windows 
internals like %USERPROFILE% either.

3)
While watching Installation-TV, I saw 'bin.xdvi-win32' scrolling by, but 
after the install there still was no DVI-viewer whatsoever. Is there no 
way to provide one during the Net-install?
A TeX system without pre-installed DVI viewer is not usable in many 
circumstances. As Siep Kroonenberg put it: "[users] ... are smart enough 
in their own field, but most of them have very little notion of the 
system they work on." And this even holds for TeX. To them, TeX is just 
the black box they use to typeset their RevTeX articles. But as soon the 
fundamentals of the TeX system are not working (or not working as 
expected from earlier versions), those users are in trouble. A 
DVI-viewer is one of those basic assumptions...
Furthermore, 'pdf(la)tex' is not an option as long as the only 
vector-graphics (read: high-quality) format produced by many 
applications is EPS and as long as PDF handling under Windows is still 
clumsy due to exclusively locked files (which also the new PS_View does).

4)
When the final message window appeared, the following status messages 
were accessible in the accompanying console window:
4a)
[snip]
> Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at C:\install-tl\install-tl li
> ne 489.
> Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at C:\install-tl\insta
> ll-tl line 490.
> Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at C:\install-tl\install-tl li
> ne 496.
> Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at C:\install-tl\insta
> ll-tl line 497.
[snip]
Don't know what this means, might not even be an error...
4b)
[snip]
> Running f-cache -v -r
> running mktexlsr C:/texlive/2008/texmf-dist C:/texlive/2008/texmf
> mktexlsr: Updating C:/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/ls-R...
> mktexlsr: Updated C:/texlive/2008/texmf-dist/ls-R.
> mktexlsr: Updating C:/texlive/2008/texmf/ls-R...
> mktexlsr: Updated C:/texlive/2008/texmf/ls-R.
> mktexlsr: Done.
[snip]
Shouldn't the first line read 'Running fc-cache -v -r'? And shouldn't 
fc-cache generate more output -- or is it momentarily disabled due to 
the previous problems while saving the cache? After the installation the 
'fc-cache -v -r' ran without problems (as admin).

5)
After closing the finalization message, the corresponding console window 
did not close.

6)
There are way too many entries in the 'TeX Live 2008' group. All those 
manuals could got to a subfolder like 'TeX Live Manuals'.

7)
I see no problem in silently adding the two shortcuts to the user's 
desktop.  Windows users are used to this behaviour...

8)
tlmgr: The convenient little button to edit the 'updmap.cfg' from 2007 
is greatly missed.

9)
The German text of the button 'TeX Live Manager (tlmgr)' should rather 
read 'Über tlmgr'.

10)
PS_View: Under Windows 2000, the 'Open file' dialogue did not work. 
However, files could be opened by dropping them on the symbol on the 
desktop.

11)
TeXdoc GUI:
11a)
Settings-Printer: lpr won't do any good (with these options). Syntax 
would be:
 > lpr -S {Server Name or IP} -P {Queue Name} [-o l]
where '-o l' is to be used for binary data like PostScript. 
Unfortunately guessing a working IP might prove impossible and '-S 
127.0.0.1' for local printer(s) also does not work as Windows provides 
no lpq(s) for them...
11b)
DVI 'viewer command' is 'dviout' although this is definitely not installed.
11c)
i) While trying to find a solution to 8) (i.e. which of the many 
updmap.cfg to alter) via 'TeXdok GUI'-'The TeX Live 
Guide'-'German'/'English', those entries gave errors ('live.pdf missing' 
or similar).
ii) Then used the links in the start menu (working), unfortunately 
neither English nor German 'TeX Live Manual' were of any help. At this 
stage, I defined 'psv.bat' as default application for PDF (fresh and 
clean Windows-VMs without Acrobat Reader ;).
iii) Cross check if missing default application was responsible for 
11c-i): First document from 'The TeX Live Guide' worked (Czech/Slovak 
version, randomly chosen), all subsequent choices in this category open 
the Czech/Slovak version. Different entries in other categories, e.g. 
'Fundamentals', behave as expected.
11d)
Why gives the search function nothing for 'kpfonts' and 'pxfonts' but 
something for 'fourier' and 'lm'?

12)
Xe(La)TeX is working (story & sample2e).


X) As many of the (*)TeX-developers are on this list: Does anyone know a 
tool to convert Xe(La)TeX's xdv files to PostScript? Or is this 
impossible anyway, although Postscript is said to support multibyte 
characters?

Best Regards,
  Gregor