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Is it worth the effort to manually install TeX Live 2011 on Ubuntu? Has so much changed since 2009?

I am a new Ubuntu user coming from windows and have very limited knowledge of Linux environment. I have read contradictory things about how to set up TeX Live 2011 in an Ubuntu environment and all the instructions I have found contains part that are obscure to me. Thus, I am somehow compelled to sudo apt-get texlive.

If I only have t manually install a few package in my ~/texmf to resolve some occasional bugs that have been fixed since 2009 that would be all right, at least until I know better. But I am wondering if I might not end up doing this a lot?

M. Toya
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  • If you use plain TeX with Computer Modern typeface then there is no reason to update. If you are thinking about using OpenType fonts (XeTeX, LuaTeX) then, yes, you need to upgrade. Something inbetween? I'd say yes, you should consider upgrading, but YMMW. What kind of documents do you create? Do you like to use lot's of fonts? What about math? – topskip Jun 20 '12 at 18:23
  • I do not use a lot of fonts but I use math. I do not use XeTeX nor LuaTeX for now and do not plan to do soon. Then I guess Ican do with the Ubuntu version. – M. Toya Jun 20 '12 at 18:27
  • How to install TeX Live on Ubuntu: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1092/how-to-install-vanilla-texlive-on-debian-or-ubuntu – Ricardo Jun 20 '12 at 18:28
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    if you're going to upgrade, it is probably worth waiting for tex live 2012, which should be available in a few weeks. – barbara beeton Jun 20 '12 at 18:31
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    Yes, it's definitely worth upgrading (I agree with barbara's comment to wait a few weeks for tl 2012). Updating individual packages is tremendously hard work, as they almost always have dependencies on other packages. tlmgr handles all of this elegantly – cmhughes Jun 20 '12 at 18:38
  • @cmhughes -- 'almost always have dependencies'? That is certainly not true. Plus, many of the more complicated ones are made by authors who provide .tds.zip versions, which are incredibly easy to install, even for people new to Linux. Not nearly as easy as tlmgr I guess, but not incredibly difficult either. – jon Jun 20 '12 at 19:58
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    It may be also worth noting that Debian testing has the prerelease 2012 packages now, so it is quite likely that the next release of Ubuntu will have TeXLive 2012. – Jan Hlavacek Jun 20 '12 at 21:20

3 Answers3

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Is it worth the effort? Yes. The installation is pretty straight forward, especially when you install over the internet; you get the benefit of: having the most up-to-date version of every package (not three-year old ones), tlmgr, which will let you update your packages just as easily as apt-get, and finally, the whole installation process will shed some light on the parts you find obscure, in a learn-by-doing sort of way.

Start with How to install TeX Live on Ubuntu: How to install "vanilla" TeXLive on Debian or Ubuntu? and follow the directions therein.

Community
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Ricardo
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  • The installation process up to running ./install-tl is quite understandable (my only doubt being should I do it with sudo or not?). What confuses me are the post-installation steps: setting the environment variables and making it blend with ubuntu. – M. Toya Jun 20 '12 at 19:51
  • I have installed TeXlive as user in a hidden directory of my home: ~/.texlive2011. The only environment that had to be set is PATH, in my case to $HOME/.texlive2011/bin/x86_64-linux:$PATH. – krlmlr Jun 20 '12 at 23:24
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If you are new to *tex and GNU/Linux, then I'd suggest installing from the repositories first, and learn what and why you need *tex for. By the time you can answer that question competently, you'll be ready to install TeX Live directly. (Or not: by that time you'll probably be able to install packages manually and come to realize that it is not very difficult at all --- assuming your comfort level with using the command line has also grown.)

The downside to this approach is that most of the people who write the (good) answers here will assume you are running as up to date a system as they are. So if you run into problems, lots of the advice here will assume you are not using something as out of date as packages from TL 2009.

One word of warning: if you do install TeX Live from the web, be careful about updating as deadlines approach. There is nothing worse than (foolishly) updating the night before something is due only to find out that it 'breaks' (temporarily) a document that compiled just fine before the update.

In short, if you expect you'll need to use engines like luatex or xetex, packages like pgf (et al.) biblatex (and biber), things related to latex3 (or packages dependent upon it like siunitx), non-standard fonts, and so forth, then TeX Live might be a better starting point (because you'll probably want to update these pretty quickly). If you don't need to be so up to date, ease into using GNU/Linux and install with synaptic or apt-get. And when you do need to update, look first for packages ending with tds.zip from CTAN: they are much easier to install.

jon
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  • I am new to Linux but not to *tex. I do use pgf/TikZ and siunitx. I managed to make siunitx work by manually installing a few packages. I have not tried TikZ yet. I think I will wait until I am more familiar with Linux and texlive 2012 comes out. – M. Toya Jun 20 '12 at 20:13
  • @AlfredM. -- I agree: wait at least until TL2012. Note also that Debian/Ubuntu packages PGF/TikZ separately from TeX Live. As far as I know the repository version is up to date (discounting the bleeding-edge SVN developments). Also: siunitx is available in a tds.zip version, which you install by moving the file to the base of the texmf-tree (maybe something /usr/share/texmf-texlive), sudo unzip the file, then run sudo texhash and you're done. (Though siunitx depends on the l3* packages I think ... I don't use it myself, actually.) – jon Jun 20 '12 at 20:26
  • That is how I have done it and some l3* were indeed required. – M. Toya Jun 21 '12 at 06:08
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If you install texlive from the command line installer downloaded from http://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl-unx.tar.gz, you should not forget to install symlinks (search in all the options), otherwise it won't work. You can choose the collections, which are pretty much self-explainable.

If you don't care about space, install it all (sudo apt-get install texlive-full). And even texlive 2009 has xetex, and has always worked for me (sudo apt-get install texlive-xetex), and all language packs (if you ever need them).

If you don't care about fonts, don't have lots of space, or don't use many fancy packages, there is no reason to update.

  • I usually don't recommend installing the symlinks with the TUG provided TeX Live, as successive installations with apt-get might want to install also TeX Live/Debian and chaos would ensue. Better use the method outlined in http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1092/how-to-install-vanilla-texlive-on-debian-or-ubuntu. Note that TeX Live 2009/Debian is really outdated. – egreg Jun 20 '12 at 20:00
  • @egreg: I don't quite understand the "BTW: Debian & Ubuntu have TeXLive 2012 now" on that page. I usually symlink the texlive year into current and mention current within the PATH change. Then I only have to mess with the PATH once. – daleif Jun 20 '12 at 20:04
  • I could never install symlinks easily (and quit trying) except with the TUG-provided TeX Live. And if apt-get installs texlive from debian/ubuntu/whatever repositories, it's always because the user explicitly wanted or allowed it. –  Jun 20 '12 at 20:05
  • @daleif It's a method similar to mine: I usually symlink the binaries directory to /opt/texbin (MacTeX does something similar). I don't recommend symlinking the binaries in /usr/bin. – egreg Jun 20 '12 at 20:08
  • @egreg Re your first comment, my memory may be failing but I think that the symlinks that TUG puts in are to /usr/local in which case they won't get clobbered by an apt-get. – Andrew Stacey Jun 20 '12 at 20:46
  • @AndrewStacey Maybe. But a big advantage of TeX Live is that it's almost completely independent of the OS: just add a suitable TeX file in /etc/paths.d/ and all's well. Only one file instead of hundreds of symlinks (353, as of today). – egreg Jun 20 '12 at 20:53
  • @daleif: I believe the comment on the page refers to the fact that packages for TeXLive 2012 are now in Debian testing, so if you are using Debian testing or any distribution based on that, 2012 is your default TeXLive distribution. However, the comment is misleading, since Debian stable (which is what should be referred to as "Debian") still has TeXLive 2009. – Jan Hlavacek Jun 20 '12 at 21:25
  • @egreg: Symlinks to binaries should ideally be made in /usr/local/bin. Since apt-get runs as root, and root typically does not have /usr/local/bin in path, there should not be any conflict. If you for some reason need to have /usr/local/bin in your path, you may want to skip making the symlinks, and add the TeXLive bin directory to your users (but not roots) path. – Jan Hlavacek Jun 20 '12 at 21:32
  • @egreg My point was that there's no danger of interfering with the normal running of a Ubuntu/Debian system even if you install all the symlinks. Whether you do or not (and not every user loads /etc/paths.d/), having an up-to-date TL alongside the system one does not have any adverse side-effects. – Andrew Stacey Jun 20 '12 at 21:34