[texhax] A problem with dvips.

[Tomas Rokicki]

This is due to a licensing issue that recently came to light;
psfig licenses are incompatible with the GPL, and so much
of the other software is GPL.  It's really too bad.

But yes, startTexFig is gone, and so is, to my knowledge,
all of psfig.

The only solution I have is to move away from psfig.

I guess someone could reimplement *something* but
no one has stepped up.

-tom

On Tue, Oct 11, 2016 at 2:56 PM, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz>
wrote:

>
> I recently "upgraded" my system.  Now I cannot create a pdf file from a
> LaTeX document which previously caused no trouble.  If I take an "old"
> file "talk.ps" which was created (in the dim distant past) by "dvips
> talk" (after "talk.dvi" was created by running "latex talk" on "talk.tex" I
> can do
>
>    ps2pdf talk.ps
>
> and get a no-problem pdf file, talk.pdf.
>
> However if I do
>
>     dvips talk # Runs without generating any error messages.
>     ps2pdf talk.ps
>
> I get an error:
>
> Operand stack:
>>
>> Execution stack:
>>    %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--
>>  --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--
>>  --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1977   1   3   %oparray_pop
>>  1976   1   3   %oparray_pop   1960   1   3   %oparray_pop   1852   1   3
>>  %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   %errorexec_pop   .runexec2
>>  --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push
>>  --nostringval--
>> Dictionary stack:
>>    --dict:1198/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--   --dict:119/200(L)--
>>  --dict:196/300(L)--   --dict:118/200(L)--
>> Current allocation mode is local
>> Last OS error: No such file or directory
>> Current file position is 444444
>> GPL Ghostscript 9.18: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1
>>
>
> If I rename the old ("working") talk.ps file, call it oldtalk.ps, run
>
>     diff talk.ps oldtalk.ps
>
> I get a huge (235 line) output, which means essentially nothing to me. I
> have attached this file, in case it means something to *somebody*.
>
> I would appreciate it if someone could point me to a remedy for this
> problem.  I need to produce a *new* talk, on a different topic, whence
> I cannot just use the old "talk.ps".
>
> To forestall questions on the issue:  The talk is generated using the
> powerdot document class which does not seem to play nicely with pdflatex.
> So I cannot just do "pdflatex talk".  Psigh!
>
> Thanks for any useful ideas.
>
> cheers,
>
> Rolf Turner
>
> --
> Technical Editor ANZJS
> Department of Statistics
> University of Auckland
> Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
>
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