[tex-live] trouble starting context on latest tl2008 developer snapshot

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hi Norbert,


Norbert Preining wrote:
> 
>> Step 2.  luatools --generate
>> Step 3.  context --make --compile cont-en
> 
> That is at installation. 
> 
> But there are MANY MANY MANY different problems here with updating:

I'll answer the questions, but see below.

> - do we call luatools --generate when updating the context packages

yes

> - do we call luatools --generate if *any* package is updated 
>   (similar to mktexlsr)

only for packages that are relevant to context (that should be the
ones triggered by collection-context and its children).

> - do we call context --make ... at update time?

only when the context package itself or the luatex binary is updated.
(the need for this command to be run explicitly may go away in the
future, but it will remain present)

> On Mo, 07 Jul 2008, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
>> I do realise that in many installations this won't work properly.
>> Multi-user systems would actually want context to support something
>> like "~/.texlive/2008/texmf-var" or a combination of SYS,USER settings
>> to work properly because otherwise there will be permission conflicts
>> (unless the umasks are set up just right) as well as privacy concerns
>> (for any downloaded http files).
> 
> That is what I was talking about since *months* on the context list!

I know, I know. Not enough time and there were other pressing matters,
you know how that goes :-( If I had to do it again, I have would deleted
all the lua support files from the context distribution before
committing it this time around. Luatex itself is on tl for texdoc, not
for mkiv, which is just a 'bonus'.

>> But at this moment, context mkiv is still a very experimental system,
>> and there is not enough time to remedy the TEXMFCACHE subsystem before
>> texlive2008, so I will stick with the /usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-var
>> proposal for this year. I expect context mkiv to be much more mature
>> next year.
> 
> It would be good to lay the ground work NOW! TL2008 release will take
> time. And we can update the package during the year. But we should think
> about WHAT we want and how it should and *WILL* work now.

As you know, Hans Hagen works on a single-user machine where he is
his own administrator. My personal situation usually amounts to the
same thing: disk space is so cheap that I don't bother with system-wide
installs for anything tex-related any more: each of my commercial
projects and coworkers all have their own texmf tree(s).

Because of this, I (we) simply cannot answer this question within a
timeframe that is reasonable for texlive 2008: I definately don't want
texlive's release date to depend on political decisions that need to
be made for an experimental system, but neither do I want that release
date to force these decisions to be made prematurely. I am uncertain
where that leaves us for texlive 2008, sorry.

Best wishes,
Taco