uninstalling an old version

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2020-03-14 at 19:58:27 -0400, Bob Tennent wrote:

 >  >|    Might tlmgr remove --all or the above have removed the
 >  >|    symlinks in /usr/local/bin?
 >  >|
 >  >|It is supposed to, yes.
 > 
 > Hmm. So if one has installed TL-2020 (even the pretest) and
 > then uninstalls TL-2019, the symlinks to the 2020 bins are
 > removed? That doesn't seem right.

Of course it's right.  Symlinks either point to TL2019 or to TL2020.
If you remove them no distribution is accessible.

The only solution is to avoid symlinks.  It was already considered to
remove the "create symlinks" option from the installer some years ago.
I voted against because I thought that there are Linux users who are
not very familiar with their operating system and that the symlinks
option makes the installation easier for them.  Nowadays I think that
my objection was a big mistake.

Bob, when you install TL2019 all the symlinks point to TL2019.  If you
later install TL2020 all symlinks point to TL2020 and TL2019 is
inaccessible.  If you ask TL2020's tlmgr to remove the symlinks it
removes them but doesn't create new symlinks pointing TL2019 because
TL2020 is not aware of your TL2019 installation.

You cannot use the "create symlinks" option if you intend to install
more than one instance of TeX Live.  This cannot work.

I followed the discussion initiated by Denis Bitouzé.  I understand
his objections.  But if you know that everybody is on Linux you can
provide a simple script which uses kpsewhich in ortder to determine
where TeX Live is installed and appends PATH, INFOPATH, MANPATH to
~/.bashrc.

Regards,
  Reinhard

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reinhard Kotucha                            Phone: +49-511-3373112
Marschnerstr. 25
D-30167 Hannover                    mailto:reinhard.kotucha at web.de
------------------------------------------------------------------