1

Input

brew install --cask mactex

Output

You must restart your terminal window for the installation of MacTex CLI tools to take effect.
Alternatively, Bash and Zsh users can run the command:

eval "$(/usr/libexec/path_helper)"


==> Downloading https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/mac/mactex/mactex-20220321.pkg
Already downloaded: /Users/iamthelabhras/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/b4a8f6bffbfd2af819208c808eda31fdbb959295674dd63f1d0797d4f94d37d3--mactex-20220321.pkg
All formula dependencies satisfied.
==> Installing Cask mactex
==> Running installer for mactex; your password may be necessary.
Package installers may write to any location; options such as --appdir are ignored.
Password:
installer: Package name is MacTeX
installer: choices changes file '/private/tmp/choices20220904-3519-19ami42.xml' applied
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install failed..
==> Purging files for version 2022.0321 of Cask mactex
Error: Failure while executing; /usr/bin/sudo -E -- /usr/bin/env LOGNAME=iamthelabhras USER=iamthelabhras USERNAME=iamthelabhras /usr/sbin/installer -pkg /usr/local/Caskroom/mactex/2022.0321/mactex-20220321.pkg -target / -applyChoiceChangesXML /private/tmp/choices20220904-3519-19ami42.xml exited with 1. Here's the output:
installer: Package name is MacTeX
installer: choices changes file '/private/tmp/choices20220904-3519-19ami42.xml' applied
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install failed..

Well and truly out of my depth here. I'm installing MacTeX as a prelude to learning note-taking in LaTeX and, though I'm comfortable on the command line, these errors read like Greek to me.

Any help the community could offer would be greatly appreciated!

Go raibh míle maith agaibh!

iamthelabhras
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1 Answers1

3

I'd not install MacTeX with Homebrew. It's just going to

https://www.tug.org/mactex

Click on the obvious link and download the installer. Double click on it when the download is finished to mount the disk image (if your browser hasn't already done this step). Start the installer, provide the administrator password and wait for the install to complete.

That's all: unmount the image and trash the (big) downloaded file.

Now you have a directory

/usr/local/texlive/2022

that contains the complete distribution. Next year, when TeX Live 2023 will be released, you can do the steps again and the new installer will not overwrite or in any way change the older directory.

With the provided TeX Live Utility (you'll find it in the Applications folder) you can even choose between all available distributions on your machine. This might reveal a lifesaver: sometimes it happens that some critical job doesn't compile correctly with the new distribution and you're on a tight timeline. Don't panic! Switch to the older one for completing the job. You may study the problem later when the job has been submitted and you have some spare time.

The “Configure Menu” has an entry “Change default TeX Live version…”. If you choose it, a window such as the following one opens

enter image description here

It's best to run TeX Live Utility regularly in order to update the distribution.

Just for information, on the machine I'm currently using, I have all TeX Live version from 2012 to 2022 (I have those from 2007 to 2011 on a machine in my office). The years from 2012 to 2016 cannot be selected this way for technical reasons, but it's easy to run programs in them.

If you do the install with Homebrew, I'm quite sure the older distribution will be removed!

You don't need to keep all the old versions. I keep them for debugging: sometimes I'm able to solve an issue by looking at changes in packages between distributions. But keeping last year's is better.

How do you remove a release? Just open a Finder window, go to /usr/local/texlive and trash the folder with the year you want to get rid of. Provide the administrator password when requested and empty the trashcan.

egreg
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