5

I've been running LaTeX for about a decade on my Macs and I've picked up a Dell Chromebook for travelling (to install Linux via Crouton). Pretty much the only reason to do this over a tablet is that I want a proper LaTeX installation on it. The CB has only 2GB RAM and a 16 GB hard drive so I need to be careful with resources.

Question: any recommended way to keep the LaTeX size in check or otherwise optimize my setup so I can happily write and compile? This is a working computer so if I can run LaTeX smoothly, I'm happy.

I've only ever run the odd command line command so advice would be very welcome on how to install via command line (on Linux) so I get full packages (so I'm self contained for travel and minimal internet access) but without all the disk hogging documentation.

I was able to install with the command: sudo apt-get install texlive AND sudo apt-get install texlive-full but not fully certain either of these is quite what I was after. (Not sure how to verify.) I want full packages but no documentation. Suggestions?

Thanks!

mangobait
  • 51
  • Welcome! Choice of distro is off-topic here. It is irrelevant to LaTeX if you use upstream's installer. If you use your distro's packages of TeX Live, you will want to see if they are sufficiently current for your usage. Many distros will be using older editions of TL so if you want the same as the latest MacTeX, you will probably want upstream. You can control the size in the normal way if space is really limited, but it always makes life more complicated, of course. – cfr Mar 31 '16 at 02:46
  • http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/18939/which-latex-to-install-on-linux?rq=1. http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1092/how-to-install-vanilla-texlive-on-debian-or-ubuntu?s=8|1.2584 is highly recommended. Easy to adapt for distros other than Debian-based e.g. adapts fine for Fedora, Arch etc. – cfr Mar 31 '16 at 02:49
  • Thanks. Distro question is a sidebar. I just wanted people to understand the fuller question I'm asking. And by that I mean distribution of Linux, not LaTeX.

    The "normal way"? What is that?

     – mangobait Mar 31 '16 at 18:15
  • Well, you can tailor the installation. Just read the instructions. Either way, you can tailor it: either picking distro packages or picking stuff in upstream's installer. Makes life more complicated, but if you've no choice, you have to do it. – cfr Mar 31 '16 at 19:29
  • Thanks. Even finding a forum that discusses LaTeX + Crouton would be great.

    Posted this on the Crouton "issues" page on Github:

    I want to run LaTex on my Chromebook (Dell 11, 2GB RAM, 1.7 GHz) and prefer Crouton.

    Question 1: can I maintain a LaTeX install if I update Ubuntu from 12.04 to 14.04 (or soon 16.04)? Or would I have to reinstall LaTeX? (14.04 or newer preferred.)

    Question 2: Which distro (Ubuntu preferred) is best to run LaTeX? Or am I best to not use Crouton?

    I'm new to Crouton (and fairly new to Linux) but old to LaTeX (used it on OSX for a decade).

     – mangobait Apr 01 '16 at 15:23
  • If you use upstream's installer it will make no difference which distro you choose. (OK, very rarely it might temporarily make a difference. This has happened to me once.) – cfr Apr 01 '16 at 19:28
  • Thanks. Will try to find info on "upstream installer". By this I presume you mean rootier than the chroot? I have only barely flirted with Linux so fuzzy on the options.

    And this may not be an option with Crouton. Seems that with that the questions enters more and more the realm of a Linux issue.

     – mangobait Apr 02 '16 at 15:49
  • See this question. That is for Debian-based distros, but the answers can be easily modified for others (e.g. Fedora, Arch etc.). – cfr Apr 02 '16 at 19:25
  • The complications involved in installing on a ChromeBook really are off-topic here and you'd need to ask those elsewhere. But assuming you have /usr/local, I'm assuming you can install there using the installer in the normal way. – cfr Apr 02 '16 at 20:48
  • I'm confused about urgency to class a question as off topic. Is there a page for installation of LaTeX? As I mentioned, I've been using LaTeX since 2004 and I always have the biggest headaches installing the thing. Why? Because I do it so infrequently. I use LaTeX on a daily or weekly or even monthly basis. I install it every couple of years at best. Always a pain in the ass. So if this is the wrong subsection, is there an installation subsection? If not, why not? I am honestly confused. Some people using LaTeX live and die on the command line. Others of us just love beautiful documents. – mangobait Apr 04 '16 at 00:41
  • Installation is on-topic, but not installation/choice of Linux distro. I already directed you to the best question I'm aware of for help installing from upstream on Linux. The other choice is to install your distro's packages using your distro's package manager. But that is really about your distro - there's nothing special about installing TeX Live in that case. If you install upstream's it is different and the linked question addresses that at length. – cfr Apr 04 '16 at 00:50
  • Do note that your question hasn't been closed as off-topic. Nobody has even voted to close it as off-topic as far as I can tell. You could revise the question to be on-topic. If not, it will probably eventually get closed as off-topic. But only because it is off-topic and you're asking stuff which probably most people here can't help you with anyway. – cfr Apr 04 '16 at 00:53
  • Thanks. Made some edits to the question. Installing has always been the biggest nuisance with this system. Otherwise, i just wish more people used it so I don't get pulled into editing any documents with childish Easter egg formatting. – mangobait Apr 05 '16 at 03:00
  • So my TeX Live installation (full, from TUG, not from Debian's repositories) is about 4.1 GB. Fonts make up 1.7 GB ( in /usr/.../texmf-dist/fonts) while documentation (.../doc) takes up 1.9 GB; the next two largest directories are tex (289 MB -- and you can't delete this one) and source (258 MB). That's essentially the whole installation.... – jon Apr 05 '16 at 03:55
  • (Looking again at the last sentence.) You could safely delete the doc and source folders to save space; deleting portions of the font folder could also be done, but you should think twice before doing so, and read thrice about how fonts work to do it safely. – jon Apr 05 '16 at 04:08
  • Installing from upstream would give you more fine-grained control and more current software. Deleting stuff installed with apt will confuse your package manager. Also, when you update with apt you will likely find that doc and source reappear if they were there in the first place. You can't install part of one of Debian's packages - it is all or nothing. If doc and source are packaged separately, that's different, of course. – cfr Apr 05 '16 at 11:51

1 Answers1

2

If you install vanilla texlive via the command line (e.g. from https://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html) you can de-select things like documentation and languages you don't need. At the bottom you will always see the required size for your selection:

enter image description here

enter image description here

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz
  • 158,329