LaTeX can't find any files

[Adam Blažek]

On August 3, 2023 10:46:03 GMT+02:00, Zdenek Wagner <zdenek.wagner at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>the best way is to remove all TEX* variables from your environment and
>make sure that an old (la)tex binary is not earlier in PATH. Binaries
>from TeX Live find the files relative to the path of the binary. Alois
>gave you the hints how to check it.
>
>Zdeněk Wagner
>https://www.zdenek-wagner.eu/
>
>st 2. 8. 2023 v 23:01 odesílatel xigoi--- via tex-live
><tex-live at tug.org> napsal:
>>
>> On 2023-08-02 20:59, xigoi at disroot.org wrote:
>> > On 2023-08-02 09:53, Markus Kohm wrote:
>> >> Am Dienstag, 1. August 2023, 22:27:48 CEST schrieb xigoi--- via
>> >> tex-live:
>> >>> I've installed TeXLive on a quite new installation of Debian, but
>> >>> when I
>> >>> try to compile anything, it gives the following message:
>> >>>
>> >>> ! LaTeX Error: File `article.cls' not found.
>> >>>
>> >>> If I manually copy article.cls next to the file I'm compiling, it
>> >>> will
>> >>> complain that it can't find some other files that are part of the
>> >>> LaTeX
>> >>> installation. kpsewhich article.cls doesn't return anything.
>> >>
>> >> Maybe you've a broken setting of, e.g., TEXINPUTS. Have a look into
>> >> the result
>> >> of:
>> >>
>> >>      printenv TEXINPUTS
>> >>
>> >> and
>> >>
>> >>      kpsewhich -var-value TEXINPUTS
>> >>
>> >> The first one should be empty, the second one should contain the
>> >> texmf-dist
>> >> directory of the TeX Live installation.
>> >>
>> >> Other settings also could be broken. These are usually configured in
>> >> the files
>> >> listed by
>> >>
>> >>      kpsewhich -a texmf.cnf
>> >>
>> >> The problem could also be the result of missing or not updated ls-R
>> >> files. You
>> >> can try
>> >>
>> >>      texhash
>> >>
>> >> (or sudo texhash if the user is not allowed to write to the texmf
>> >> directories)
>> >> to generate them. But this should not happen with two different
>> >> installations.
>> >
>> > Thank you for the response!
>> >
>> > I checked the TEXINPUTS variable and for some reason, it contained
>> > "/usr/share/texmf-dist", but not the actual path, which is
>> > "/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist". This is weird because the config file
>> > at "/usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf", which was found by kpsewhich,
>> > clearly says:
>> >
>> >     TEXMFROOT = /usr/share/texlive
>> >     TEXMFDIST = $TEXMFROOT/texmf-dist
>> >     TEXMFMAIN = $TEXMFDIST
>> >
>> > Alright, so when I manually add the correct path to TEXINPUTS (I'm
>> > still not sure how to do it the right way), it does find article.cls,
>> > but now there's another error:
>> >
>> >     kpathsea: Running mktextfm cmr12
>> >     mktextfm: Cannot find mktex.opt; check your installation.
>> >     kpathsea: Appending font creation commands to missfont.log.
>> >     ! Font OT1/cmr/m/n/14.4=cmr12 at 14.4pt not loadable: Metric (TFM)
>> > file not fou
>> >     nd.
>> >
>> > It seems to be looking for the file cmr12.tfm, which exists at
>> > "/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/tfm/public/cm/". The command I'm
>> > running is:
>> >
>> >     TEXINPUTS='.:/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist//:' pdflatex test.tex
>>
>> Update: I've now found out that the config line with TEXMFDIST is, for
>> some weird reason, being ignored. If I run the compiler like this,
>> everything works properly:
>>
>>      pdflatex -cnf-line='TEXMFDIST = $TEXMFROOT/texmf-dist' test.tex

Thank you for the help! It turns out that I accidentally had TEXMFDIST set in my .bashrc copied from a different installation. Stupid mistake.