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diff --git a/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-initex.html b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-initex.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..4c23f977dbe --- /dev/null +++ b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-initex.html @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +<head> +<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label initex</title> +</head><body> +<h3>What’s happened to <i>initex</i>?</h3> +<p/>In the beginning, (La)TeX was stretching the capacity of every +system it was ported to, so there was a premium on reducing the size +of executables. One way of doing this was to have a separate +executable, <i>initex</i>, that had things in it that aren’t +needed in ordinary document runs — notably <code>\</code><code>patterns</code> (which +builds hyphenation tables), and <code>\</code><code>dump</code> (which writes out a format). +<p/>On modern systems, the size of this code is insignificant in +comparison to the memory available, and maintaining separate programs +has been found sufficiently error-prone that free Unix-style system +distributions have abolished <i>initex</i> and its friends and +relations such as <i>inipdftex</i> in favour of a single +executable (that is, just <i>tex</i> or <i>pdftex</i>) that +will “do what <i>initex</i> (or whatever) used to do” if it +detects the command option “<code>-ini</code>”. +<p/>The change happened with the advent of teTeX version +3.0, which appeared at the beginning of 2005. At that time, +TeX Live was following teTeX, so that year’s TeX Live +distribution would also have dropped <i>initex</i>. +<p/>It would appear that the equation is somewhat different for the +MiKTeX developers, since that system continues to offer an +<i>initex</i> executable. + +<p/><p/><p/><p/><p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=initex">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=initex</a> +</body> |