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+This is the FAQ for teTeX -- a TeX distribution for UNIX compatible
+systems. If you have questions about some points that remain unclear,
+or if you think that things could be described better, just drop me
+a line. My Email address:
+
+ Thomas Esser <te@dbs.uni-hannover.de>
+
+
+This article includes answers to:
+ 0) Where can I get the teTeX distribution?
+ 1) Is there a mailing list for teTeX?
+ 2) Now that I know that there is a mailing list: is there an archive
+ 6) I added some files in the texmf tree. But they are not found.
+ 7) When running some old dvi files through a dvi driver, I get warnings
+ 8) What is the best method to get pk fonts in a batch job?
+ 9) What to do if I need the fonts for several modes?
+ 10) Can I share the teTeX directory tree between different platforms?
+ 11) After mktexpk and mktextfm successfully generate fonts, kpathsea
+ 12) mktextfm runs Metafont with a mode that I do not like.
+ 14) How about adding program XYY or a macro package ABC to teTeX?
+ 15) I want to keep my files separate from the system's files. What do
+ I need to do to make sure that tex+friends will find my files?
+ 16) How do I deinstall an old version of teTeX?
+ 17) How do I manage to execute the right binaries on each platform?
+ 20) Using the Shrink* Buttons in xdvi, I cannot get back to see the full
+ 21) Which is the right way of using the AMS fonts/macros with LaTeX?
+ 23) Some things do not work properly. What should I do now?
+ 24) I get a error message about "TeX capacity exceeded". What can I do?
+ 25) The scrollbars of xdvi do not make sense to me. How do I move backwards?
+ 26) Is teTeX freely redistributable?
+ 27) dvips, pdftex, dvipdfm and xdvi use the European A4 size as default
+ 28) Why does ghostview display of my texts look so much worse than
+ 29) Metafont does not support the X display.
+ 32) How can I get the Euro currency symbol?
+ 33) Font map files and enc files from my local texmf tree are not
+ found by dvips / pdftex etc.
+ 34) texconfig, updmap and fmtutil just change my personal settings. How
+ can I change global defaults in a multi-user setup?
+
+Answers:
+
+0) Where can I get the teTeX distribution?
+
+ teTeX can be downloaded from CTAN and CTAN mirrors, e.g.:
+ ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX/
+ ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX/
+ ftp://ftp.duke.edu/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX/
+ ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/tex/ctan/systems/unix/teTeX/
+
+1) Is there a mailing list for teTeX?
+
+ Yes. There is one list for discussion and one (moderated) list for
+ announcements. The discussion list is
+ tetex@dbs.uni-hannover.de
+ and the announcement list is
+ tetex-announce@dbs.uni-hannover.de
+ To subscribe to one of these lists, send a message containing the line
+ subscribe tetex
+ or
+ subscribe tetex-announce
+ resp. to majordomo@dbs.uni-hannover.de . The majordomo server
+ understands a few more commands. To get more help about our
+ server, send a mail with the line 'help' in the body.
+ Note that announcements are posted into both lists, so if you are
+ interested in discussions and announcements, you only need to
+ subscribe to the tetex list.
+
+2) Now that I know that there is a mailing list: is there an archive
+ of the list?
+
+ Yes. Just send a message with the line
+ get tetex archive
+ to majordomo@dbs.uni-hannover.de .
+
+6) I added some files in the texmf tree. But they are not found.
+
+ You need to run texhash to update the ls-R file. See answer to 15)
+ as well...
+
+7) When running some old dvi files through a dvi driver, I get warnings
+ about checksum errors.
+
+ The Postscript fonts are completely rearranged and the tfm files have
+ different checksums. If you have the (La)TeX source of your document,
+ you can get rid of the messages by running the sources through (La)TeX
+ again.
+
+8) What is the best method to get pk fonts in a batch job?
+
+ If you do have lots of dvi files (e.g. the documentation of teTeX),
+ just run the allneeded script on them. It runs all those files
+ through dvips (but output is send to /dev/null and not to a printer),
+ and thus calculates all fonts that are needed to print these files
+ (or preview with the same mode).
+
+ Example:
+ allneeded `kpsexpand '$TEXMFMAIN'`/doc >& /tmp/allneeded.log &
+
+ The above command calculates the pk files for all the installed
+ documentation in a background job.
+
+ If you do not have many dvi files, you can use the allcm and/or
+ allec scripts (allcm is for Computer Modern fonts, and allec for the
+ ec fonts). You need to have LaTeX installed and the scripts calculate
+ the fonts for all sizes and shapes that are used in typical LaTeX
+ documents.
+
+9) What to do if I need the fonts for several modes?
+
+ You only need the modes together with a printer or for previewing. You
+ should add a dvips configuration file for each printer using texconfig
+ and use the most common printing mode for previewing.
+ Then, any of the above scripts in 8) (allneeded, allcm, allec) can be
+ given an argument of the form -P PRINTER (where PRINTER must be a known
+ printer for dvips). This will calculate the fonts with the mode of
+ the printer PRINTER.
+
+ Example:
+ For dvips I have configured the printer lp to have the mode
+ ljfour. To get all ec fonts with ljfour mode, I would enter:
+
+ allec -P lp
+
+ If you do not have a dvips configuration file that corresponds to a
+ specific mode, you can still enter the mode on the command line.
+ Note however, that you should specify the corresponding resolution
+ as well.
+
+ Example:
+ To get all fonts in cx mode (CanonCX mode is used by many 300dpi
+ printers), give the command:
+
+ allcm -D 300 -mode cx
+
+ The flags -D and -mode are directly passed down to dvips.
+
+10) Can I share the teTeX directory tree between different platforms?
+
+ Yes. The only platform-specific directory is $TETEXDIR/bin. If you
+ want to use the same teTeX tree on different platforms, just put
+ the binaries for each platform into a different subdirectory of
+ $prefix/bin, e.g
+ /usr/local/teTeX/bin/i486-linux
+ /usr/local/teTeX/bin/sparc-solaris2.4
+ You can then mount the whole /usr/local/teTeX tree on all machines
+ and share almost all the files between them.
+
+11) After mktexpk and mktextfm successfully generate fonts, kpathsea
+ complains and does not use the newly generated font.
+
+ If you happen to see output like this:
+ ...
+ Transcript written on ecti1000.log.
+ /usr/local/teTeX/texmf/fonts/tfm/jknappen/ec/ecti1000.tfm
+ kpathsea: Appending font creation commands to missfont.log.
+ ...
+ then your shell is probably very broken. This problem is known with
+ the original bash 1.14.3 that has many problems with exit codes and
+ trap handling. Try the following line:
+
+ sh -c 'exit 1'; echo $?
+
+ The buggy bash gives 127 as result. Fixes for these problems have been
+ available e.g. from the internet newsgroup gnu.bash.bug, so not all
+ instances of bash 1.14.3 are broken. Later versions of bash should not
+ have that bug.
+
+12) mktextfm runs Metafont with a mode that I do not like.
+
+ Use texconfig and select a different mode as default mode.
+
+14) How about adding program XYY or a macro package ABC to teTeX?
+
+ Well, there are some things to take into account:
+ - I want to keep the size of the distribution small.
+ - I have only a limited amount of time.
+ - teTeX can be installed with a simple
+ ./configure && make && make install
+ on the most common UNIX platforms. Adding a new program could
+ break the whole thing.
+ Please, think about this before asking me to add something. But if a
+ really useful thing can be added without much effort and disk space
+ usage, I may decide to do that.
+
+ Another possibility is, that things are added to the contrib directory
+ of teTeX.
+
+15) I want to keep my files separate from the system's files. What do
+ I need to do to make sure that tex+friends will find my files?
+
+ If you are a local site administrator, please make use of the texmf
+ tree $TEXMFLOCAL; a single user installation of local additions
+ should go into the texmf tree $HOME/texmf. Mirror the structure
+ of the distributed texmf tree $TEXMFDIST. You can query the system
+ about these locations (TEXMFLOCAL / TEXMFDIST) by running e.g.
+ kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFLOCAL
+
+ The structure of these trees follows the TeX Directory Structure
+ (TDS) standard (revision 1.1). You can view this document by running
+ the command
+ texdoc tds
+
+ The following sections of the uktug faq deal with this topic:
+ $TEXMFDIST/doc/help/faq/uktug-faq/FAQ-instpackages.html
+ $TEXMFDIST/doc/help/faq/uktug-faq/FAQ-wherefiles.html
+ $TEXMFDIST/doc/help/faq/uktug-faq/FAQ-privinst.html
+
+ If texdoc properly knows how to load some html code into your browser,
+ you can view these pages by running e.g.
+ texdoc FAQ-instpackages.html
+
+ One thing mentioned in the uktug faq is so important that I want to
+ repeat here: you should always run the command
+ texhash
+ after you have added some file into a texmf tree.
+
+16) How do I deinstall an old version of teTeX?
+
+ Well, the simple answer is: rm -rf. But there may be some more things
+ you want to do. You may keep a backup of your .pk fonts or of some
+ local files you added to $TEXMF before you remove the old directory
+ tree. Note, however that from teTeX 0.2 to 0.3, there has been an
+ update of the CM fonts (Knuth has updated the Metafont sources). So
+ you may want to remove your old .pk files and have them recreated
+ with the new sources.
+
+ Another problem is, that there may be some symbolic links in
+ /usr/local/{bin,man} (or a similar directory) after you remove the
+ old teTeX directory tree and you may want to remove those links,
+ too. A simple way to do this, is the following:
+
+ cd /usr/local/bin
+ sh -c 'for i in *; do test -s $i || echo $i; done'
+
+ This loop echo'es all files with zero length, especially all stale
+ symbolic links. If you want to remove all files that are shown by the
+ command above, you can do this with:
+
+ sh -c 'for i in *; do test -s $i || rm -f $i; done'
+
+ You can repeat the above steps for other directories, as well
+ (e.g. /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man5).
+
+17) How do I manage to execute the right binaries on each platform?
+
+ Assuming that you have binaries for several platforms installed, your
+ binaries are in $TETEXDIR/bin/PLATFORM. The first thing you can try is
+ to set up your PATH with
+ SYSDIR=`uname -m`-`uname -s`
+ PATH=$TETEXDIR/bin/$SYSDIR:...
+ You may need to rename the PLATFORM directories for this method.
+
+ Another thing that may help is to include a local directory in your
+ PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin) and create symbolic links for the binaries:
+ linux# ln -sf /usr/local/teTeX/bin/i486-linux/* /usr/local/bin
+ sun# ln -sf /usr/local/teTeX/bin/sparc-solaris2.4/* /usr/local/bin
+ ...
+
+ If you do not like the uname-method for your PATH and the symlink
+ method, you may consider installing a small wrapper program that
+ calls the programs for the right platform. Install the wrapper in
+ $TETEXDIR/bin and create a symbolic link for each binary.
+
+ Here an example:
+ TETEXDIR=/usr/local/teTeX
+ cd $TETEXDIR/bin
+ vi platf_wrapper # see script below ...
+ chmod +x platf_wrapper
+ list=`ls i486-linux` # get a list of programs.
+ for i in $list; do
+ ln -s platf_wrapper $i
+ done
+
+ Tell your users to include $TETEXDIR/bin in their PATH. Make sure
+ that TETEXDIR is either set to an absolute path (e.g. /usr/local/teTeX)
+ or to $SELFAUTODIR (but not $SELFAUTOPARENT), since the programs are
+ now found one directory level earlier.
+
+ Now the sample wrapper. Customize, if you need:
+
+ #!/bin/sh
+
+ # the path to the directories with the subdirs for each platform
+ BINDIR=/usr/local/teTeX/bin
+
+ # export the variable. If we are called again,
+ # we do not need to recalculate.
+ export THIS_PLATFORM
+
+ case "$THIS_PLATFORM" in
+ "")
+ case "`uname -s`" in
+ Linux)
+ THIS_PLATFORM=i486-linux;;
+ SunOS)
+ THIS_PLATFORM=sparc-solaris2.4;;
+ IRIX)
+ THIS_PLATFORM=mips-irix5.3;;
+ *)
+ echo "$0: fatal error: system not detected." >&2
+ exit 1
+ esac;;
+ esac
+
+ exec $BINDIR/$THIS_PLATFORM/`basename $0` "$@"
+
+20) Using the Shrink* Buttons in xdvi, I cannot get back to see the full
+ page on the screen.
+
+ The four buttons can be configured via X resources. Just add
+ them either to your personal X resources (usually ~/.Xdefaults)
+ or to xdvi's global configuration file XDvi which resides in
+ $TEXMFMAIN/xdvi. Such a resource setting might look like this:
+ XDvi*shrinkButton3: 6
+ (This example configures button 3 to do a shrinking by a factor of 6).
+
+
+21) Which is the right way of using the AMS fonts/macros with LaTeX?
+
+ Just \usepackage{amsmath} and/or \usepackage{amsfonts}. Read
+ the documentation in doc/latex/amsmath, doc/latex/amsfonts and
+ doc/latex/amscls included in the distributed texmf tree.
+
+ Do *not* \usepackage{amstex} (amstex.sty is just for compatibility
+ with old documents and only for use in LaTeX's 2.09 compatibility mode).
+
+ Add \usepackage{amssymb} to get full access to all AMS symbols.
+
+23) Some things do not work properly. What should I do now?
+
+ First, make sure that your "environment" is ok and run
+ texconfig confall
+ This gives you an idea about which binaries are found along your
+ PATH and if you have set some environment variables that might
+ confuse teTeX's programs. If in doubt, unset all variables that
+ are set in the "environment variables" section of the output.
+
+ If binaries other than teTeX's are found, then change the definition
+ of your PATH. Put the directory containing teTeX's binaries earlier
+ into your PATH, so that teTeX's binaries are found before any other
+ TeX related stuff.
+
+ Then, your ls-R file might be out of date. Run
+ texhash
+ and see if your problem goes away.
+
+ If your problem is due to old LaTeX209 files that do not work with
+ LaTeX2e, then read $TEXMF/doc/latex/base/clsguide.dvi.
+
+ If you cannot solve your problem by yourself, then
+ a) if you think your problem is a general question about TeX/LaTeX:
+ ask in some Newsgroup, such as comp.text.tex for help, or try to
+ contact a local TeX user group.
+ b) if you think there is a bug in a package contained in teTeX:
+ contact the maintainer of the package with a good bug report. Add my
+ Email address in the Cc field of your bug report, if you want.
+ c) if your problem seems to be teTeX specific (e.g. a problem with
+ one of the binaries or shell-scripts), then report it to the
+ teTeX mailing list (tetex@dbs.uni-hannover.de). Please
+ provide the following information:
+
+ * The version of teTeX you have. For example
+ teTeX version is 3.0
+ (the version information is displayed by running "texconfig conf").
+
+ * The flavor of Unix you are running (Solaris, HP, Linux, etc), and
+ its version. For example
+ The system is Solaris 2.4
+
+ * The output of the command
+ texconfig conf
+
+ * Possibly a *short* TeX file you have problem running, and
+ the whole output of `texcommand filename', say, until the
+ first error.
+
+24) I get a error message about "TeX capacity exceeded". What can I do?
+
+ If there is a constant in the system's texmf.cnf file, just enlarge
+ this (by editing the texmf.cnf file) and run the command
+ texconfig init
+
+25) The scrollbars of xdvi do not make sense to me. How do I move backwards?
+
+ The scrollbars are what one calls Athena scrollbars. To scroll
+ forward, click the left mouse button on the location you would want
+ to scroll to the beginning of the displayed area. To scroll backward,
+ click the right mouse button on where you want to scroll the beginning
+ of the displayed area to. Click the middle mouse button for "dragging"
+ the beginning of the displayed area around.
+
+26) Is teTeX freely redistributable?
+
+ Yes. All parts of teTeX have been classified as being free software.
+
+27) dvips, pdftex, dvipdfm and xdvi use the European A4 size as default
+ papersize. How do I change this to make letterpaper the default?
+
+ Simple answer: use texconfig.
+ texconfig paper letter
+
+28) Why does ghostview display of my texts look so much worse than
+ with xdvi?
+
+ xdvi does antialiasing. If your version of ghostscript is
+ sufficiently new, it has the x11alpha device. Check for this with
+ gs -h
+ If it has, then putting
+ Ghostview*arguments: -sDEVICE=x11alpha
+ in your .Xdefault file (typically) will make ghostview use an
+ anti-aliasing display as well, at the cost of display speed.
+
+29) Metafont does not support the X display.
+ It may be that your Metafont binary is compiled without support for
+ the X windows system. If there exists a mfw binary, that one
+ has the missing X support you need.
+
+32) How can I get the Euro currency symbol?
+
+ In LaTeX, use the marvosym package (documentation: texdoc marvodoc).
+ It provides several Euro symbol by the command \EUR. The variants
+ \EURtm, \EURhv and \EURcr match are designed to be used together
+ with the fonts Times, Helvetica and Courier respectively.
+
+33) Font map files and enc files from my local texmf tree are not found
+ by dvips / pdftex etc.
+
+ With version 1.1 of the TeX Directory Structure, the location for
+ these files was changed. These files are font files and are now
+ stored in fonts/{map,enc}/<syntax>/<package>. So, the solution to
+ your problem is to rearrange these files in your tree and then call
+ the command texhash. More help is given in the release notes section
+ of the teTeX manual (run the command "texdoc TETEXDOC" to read it)
+ and on the web page http://www.tug.org/texlive/mapenc.html.
+
+34) texconfig, updmap and fmtutil just change my personal settings. How
+ can I change global defaults in a multi-user setup?
+
+ Simple answer: use the -sys variant of the tool: texconfig-sys,
+ updmap-sys and fmtutil-sys.