I'M trying to update texlive from 2013 to 2014, using this guide, but after installing 2014, tlmgr doesn't know of the new version, and thus I can't update packages. How do I point tlmgr to the new release? My tlmgr is a symlink to
/usr/bin/tlmgr -> ../share/texlive/texmf-dist/scripts/texlive/tlmgr.pl
You seem to have installed the “vanilla” TeX Live 2014 on a machine with TeX Live/Debian 2013. There's no problem in this and you don't need to remove TL/Debian unless you need space (you can fake an install with some dpkg trick with equivs).
The executable programs and scripts of the “vanilla” TeX Live sit in
/usr/local/texlive/<year>/bin/<arch>
(something there may be symbolic links, but always referring to something else with a relative path). All these programs are set up so that they know where they live and they search for files using relative paths (unless specifically told to use some absolute path).
Thus the trick is just to set your PATH environment variable so that
/usr/local/texlive/2014/bin/<arch>
(here <arch> is the machine architecture symbolic name, maybe x86_64, check in the directory /usr/local/texlive/2014 to see what it is) precedes /usr/bin.
What method to use depends on personal preferences. On the Debian (virtual) machine I use for testing I write a file texlive.sh in /etc/profile.d containing the line
export PATH=/opt/texbin:${PATH}
(one can also set other variables such as MANPATH and INFOPATH) after having created the symbolic link
/opt/texbin -> /usr/local/texlive/2014/<arch>
In this way when a new distribution is released, I only need to recreate the symbolic link pointing to the new release. Others may prefer to modify the /etc/environment file, others may want to act on a user's basis, so changing PATH in ~/.profile. Take your pick.
PATHenvironment variable in order that/usr/local/texlive/2014/bin/<arch>is before/usr/bin(here<arch>stands for the architecture you have, check in/usr/local/texlive/2014/bin/to see what to substitute to it). – egreg Sep 15 '14 at 09:04