[tex-live] PStricks is broken with XeTeX with latest TeXLive update

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

Today's discussions of problems with the interface between pstricks
and ghostscript raised suggestions of changes to dvipdfmx.cfg.

Please note that there are several such files, including ones that
might reside in user $HOME/.texlive2010 trees.  In our local TeX Live
2010 installation, I find

	texmf-config/dvipdfmx/dvipdfmx.cfg
	texmf-dist/doc/generic/pgf/version-for-dvipdfmx/pgfmanual-dvipdfmx.cfg
	texmf-dist/doc/latex/cjk/doc/pdfhowto/examples/dvipdfmx.cfg
	texmf-dist/tex/generic/pstricks/config/xdvipdfmx.cfg
	texmf/dvipdfmx/dvipdfmx.cfg

Of these, only the first mentions issues with the ghostscript option
-dSAFER, but perhaps all of them need examination.

Also, this discussion brings up the issue of dependence on TeX Live on
external utilities.  At present, the TeX Live distribution does not
contain ghostscript, but Mac OS X users generally must download an
additional bundle of packages that provide it, if they need the
ability to output DVI + PostScript + PDF.  The CUPS (Common Unix
Printing System) developers faced similar dependencies, and as a
result, our CUPS installation has its own private stable version of
ghostscript.  Perhaps TeX Live should do the same.  That way, we could
be isolated (at least for a year at a time) from changes to
ghostscript.

Development of ghostscript software is quite active.  A check of my 25
or so flavors of Unix shows vendor-provided versions 8.64 (February
2009), 8.70 (July 2009), and 8.71 (March 2010), but I'm a ghostscript
tester, and we have dozens of installed versions up to the latest,
9.02rc (March 29, 2011).  One of the recent hot topics on the
ghostscript developers list has been the issue of what fonts are
shipped with the software, and there are plans to remove support for
X11 bitmap fonts in the near future: instead, they want to rasterize
fonts on-the-fly from outline definitions, so as to improve quality of
screen display at various sizes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
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