[texhax] help installing tex

[Axel E. Retif]

On 12 Feb, 2007, at 18:02 , Karl Berry wrote:

> Hi Geoffrey,
>
> pdf(la)tex is definitely included in the mactex distribution.  I can
> only surmise that is not being installed in /usr/texbin.

/usr/texbin is a symlink to any of recent TeX distributions for Mac  
OS X. It's an ingenious device, by Gerben Wierda and Jerome Laurens,  
through which a user can shift from a TeX distribution to another by  
simply selecting it in Mac OS X System Preferences. TeXShop and other  
front-ends are adopting this mechanism, so they set the path to /usr/ 
texbin, and let the user choose which distribution that symlink  
points to.

The OP posted this problem he has in comp.text.tex, but he hasn't  
replied to our question as to which distribution he's using, so we  
can tell him which absolute path he should set in TeXShop, instead of  
the symlink path TeXShop uses now by default.

Best,

Axel

> In fact, I'm
> pretty sure that is not the standard location, it's more likely
> something like
>>> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/i386-apple-darwin8.3.1/pdflatex
>>> /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin6.8/pdflatex
>
> mactex also includes TeXShop.  I suspect if you uninstall your  
> existing
> TeXShop and reinstall the full MacTeX, things will work.
>
> You don't really want to use the fink and/or teTeX versions.  They
> aren't maintained any more.
>
> If problems persist, please try writing mactex-support at tug.org to  
> reach
> the MacTeX maintainers.
>
> Best,
> Karl
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