[tex-live] "why is tex live so big"

[Herbert Schulz]

On Oct 23, 2012, at 5:41 PM, Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> wrote:

>    There is a BasicTeX distribution for Mac OS X
> 
> Indeed.  And, guess what?  Basic(MacOSX)TeX is exactly a TL installation
> scheme, namely scheme-small.  See my previous reply, rinse and repeat :).
> 
> Robin: sorry, I cannot get a grip on what you're asking for wrt cm-super
> vs. lm, etc.  What I can tell you is that cm-super is in
> collection-fontsrecommended, and that is included in scheme-medium and
> larger (eg, not scheme-small).  Whereas it looks lm is included in
> scheme-small due to dependencies (collection-latexrecommended ->
> fontspec).
> 
> But anyway, FWIW, my recommendation (aside from buying a bigger disk)
> for someone who doesn't want to install the whole thing is:
> 1) choose a different installation scheme; and then
> 2) use tlmgr to install packages as you find you need them.
> 
> karl
> 
> P.S. I also have no experience with texliveonfly.  As far as I know, its
> author never contacted us about anything.  The first I heard about it
> was when it showed up on CTAN.  I have never needed or wanted to install
> packages "on the fly" myself, so I have never tried it.


Howdy,

BasicTeX.pkg is the basic scheme with some added items. To get the full story take a look at BasicTeX.pdf at <http://www.tug.org/mactex/morepackages.html>.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)