What's a clean way of installing a newer version of latex on Ubuntu via packages?

Question

Newer than the repo version that is (2015).

There isn't. Install TeX Live without using the repo packages. See How to install "vanilla" TeXLive on Debian or Ubuntu?. — Alan Munn, Jul 14 '16 at 17:02
@AlanMunn Technically, that is surely false. It is always possible to create packages yourself and install those. I don't know why anybody would wish to do so for purely personal use, though, as there is no benefit to be gained and many disadvantages. — cfr, Jul 14 '16 at 22:42
@cfr This depends on your interpretation 'clean'. I take it to mean something like simple and relatively non-error-prone. — Alan Munn, Jul 14 '16 at 22:50
@AlanMunn I interpret it in the Arch Linux sense. Well, actually, I think it is more KISS to use upstream's installer for TL than packaging at all, but that's a different matter. — cfr, Jul 14 '16 at 22:58
@AlanMunn That is, 'simple' means technically so, as opposed to end-user-friendly. — cfr, Sep 07 '16 at 02:44

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 10 '23 at 16:25

Note that the TeX Live distribution in the official Ubuntu repositories for Ubuntu 16.04 are still from 2015 as you can see from here. I would recommend using the TeX Live 2016 PPA maintained by J Fernyhough for updating Tex Live to 2016 and for keeping your TeX Live 2016 packages fairly up-to-date. You can do so by running:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/texlive-2016
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

EDIT: 2022-01

Currently you can install an even more actual version of TeX Live (i.e., 2019) for Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) and 18.04 (Bionic) at the TeX Live PPA by the same author. Just run following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/texlive
sudo apt update

What's a clean way of installing a newer version of latex on Ubuntu via packages?

1 Answers1