[tex-live] auto-remove (was: Bidi is gone!?)

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Martin, hi Adam,

On Di, 02 Apr 2013, Martin Schröder wrote:
> Could we then please get an option during installation to set
> auto-remove to false? And make auto-remove easily configurable from
> the gui?

as mentioned in the email to Herbert,

  I understand your request, but we are not happy with setting
  auto-remove to false. The reason is that *normally* packages
  are not removed, and removals are actually either renames,
  up superseeds. So disabling autor-remove will make it in
  *most* cases much worse for the users.

I really don't think that auto-remove should be the default,
nor should be easily configurable or so.

> During the latest DANTE meeting a prominent member stated that he no
> longer recommends or supports TL for his colleagues, as its
> auto-remove makes its update break working installations "just because
> someone somewhere did another license audit".

Then this *prominent member* should contact me and we can talk about
it, but what (s)he is talking is unfortunately bogus.

On Di, 02 Apr 2013, Maxwell, Adam R wrote:
> TeX Live Utility allows setting this as a preference, but I don't
> think it changes the tlmgr command-line behavior. Sounds like that

If you change the tlmgr config file, then it will be evaluated by
tlmgr (if not, it is a bug!).

> is an option I should add. It's off by default for symmetry with
> tlmgr's default, but I've had complaints about that.

Ignore them, please.

> Question for Norbert: does auto-backup preserve packages that are
> removed, even if they've never been updated?

What do you mean? If a package is removed from texlive, normally
a backup is made (depending on the auto-backup setting) and that
backup is not deleted, unless the user does it.

So yes, if you have auto-backup = -1, then you will have all the copies,
and if you have auto-backup >= 1, then you keep at least the last
version, even of removed packages.

And all those people complaining can simply reinstall the removed bidi
package with
	tlmgr install --file \
	  `kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFROOT`/tlpkg/backups/bidi.r28144.tar.xz
that will reinstall the latest version.

Norbert

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PREINING, Norbert                               http://www.preining.info
JAIST, Japan                                 TeX Live & Debian Developer
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