For an overview of this manual, see Introduction.
--disable-native-texlive-build--prefix, --bindir, …--disable-largefile--disable-missing--enable-compiler-warnings=level--enable-cxx-runtime-hack--enable-maintainer-mode--enable-multiplatform--enable-shared--enable-silent-rules--without-ln-s--without-x--enable-prog, --disable-prog--disable-all-pkgsThis manual (dated March 2024) corresponds to the TeX Live 2024 release.
This manual is aimed at system installers and programmers, and focuses on how to configure, build, and develop the TeX Live (TL) sources. It is also available as plain text files in the source tree: source/README.*.
The main source/README file in the TL source tree provides maximally-terse information for doing a build, and portability information for different systems, along with source/doc/README.solaris.
For information on acquiring the TL sources, see https://tug.org/texlive/svn. The canonical source repository uses Subversion, and we have no plans to change this.
This manual does not duplicate the information found in other TL documentation resources, such as:
texdoc texlive.
As an exception, the full documentation for install-tl and
tlmgr is included here as appendices, simply because it is easy
to do so. The same text is available online (linked from
https://tug.org/texlive/doc.html, or by invoking the program
with ‘--help’ (or look at the end of the source).
The TeX Live build system was redesigned in 2009 to consistently use
Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool. Thus, running
configure
&& make && make check && make install
or the essentially-equivalent
top-level Build script suffices to build and install the TL
programs. The make check clause performs various tests of the
generated programs—not strictly required but strongly recommended.
Running configure --help will display a comprehensive list of
all configure options.
The main components of the TL build system are:
Generic libraries.
TeX-specific libraries in subdirectories, notably
lib=kpathsea. (The other one is texk/ptexenc.)
TeX-specific programs (that use Kpathsea).
Other programs (that don’t use Kpathsea).
The primary design goal of the build system is modularity. Each
program and library module (or package) specifies its own requirements
and properties, such as required libraries, whether an installed
(system) version of a library can be used, configure options to
be seen at the top level, and more. An explicit list of all available
modules is kept in a single central place: m4/kpse-pkgs.m4.
A second, related goal is to configure and build each library before configuring any other (program or library) module which uses that library. This allows checking for properties and features of a library built as part of the TL tree in much the same way as for a system version of that library.
All generic libraries and several programs are maintained independently. The corresponding modules use (most of) the distributed source tree and document any modifications of that source.
All this is for the sake of simplifying both upgrading of modules and integrating new modules into the TL build system. (Despite all efforts, neither task is easy.)
Overall, building the TeX Live programs, when using all libraries from
the TL source tree, requires C and C++11 compilers, GNU make,
and Python.
make from your PATH is not GNU make, you can
set the MAKE environment variable to whatever is necessary.
GNU make is required only because of third-party libraries,
notably FreeType. Automake/Autoconf output in general, and the
TL-maintained directories, work with any reasonable
make.1
dvisvgm also
requires C++11. It is possible to build what remains with older
compilers, but you have to remove the C++11-dependent sources.
See Build one package.
A few programs in the tree have additional requirements:
requires perl for some tests run by make check.
Incidentally, the TeX Live installer (install-tl) and
manager (tlmgr) are also written in Perl, but this does not
matter for compiling the sources.
require X11 headers and libraries, typically in devel(opment) packages that are not installed by default.
requires fontconfig (again both headers and library), or, for
MacOS only, the ApplicationServices and Cocoa
frameworks.
requires GNU clisp, libsigsegv, and libiconv;
additionally, to build the rules and/or documentation: perl,
latex, pdflatex.
Lacking the required tools, building these
programs must avoided, e.g.,
configure --without-x --disable-xetex --disable-xindy
Modifying source files induces more requirements, as one might expect:
.y or .l source files requires
bison or flex to update the corresponding C sources.
.info files requires
makeinfo.
If you haven’t modified any source files, and infrastructure tools
such as autoconf or makeinfo are still being run, check
your timestamps—notably, use-commit-times must be set to
yes in your Subversion configuration (see Build system tools). No infrastructure tools are needed to do a normal build
(barring bugs).
The top-level Build script is intended to simplify building the
binaries distributed with TeX Live itself—we call this the “native”
TL build. It runs configure && make world, which builds
everything in a subdirectory of the main source tree (default
Work/), installs everything in another subdirectory (default
inst/), and finally runs make check. The exact
directory and command names can be specified via environment variables
and a few leading options. All remaining arguments (assignments or
options) are passed to the configure script. Please take a
look at the ./Build source file for more information; it is a
straightforward shell script.
An alternative, and the one we will mainly discuss here, is to run
configure and make in a suitable empty subdirectory.
Building in the source directory itself is not supported (sorry).
Running the top-level configure script configures the top level
and the subdirectories libs, utils, and texk.
Running make at the top level first iterates over the
TeX-specific libraries, and then runs make in libs,
utils, and texk to iterate over the generic libraries,
utility programs, and TeX-specific programs, respectively. These
iterations consist of two steps:
configure, adding the configure option --disable-build
if the module need not be built, otherwise running make all.
make for the selected target(s): default or
all to (re-)build, check to run tests, install,
etc.
Running the top-level make a second time iterates again over
all the library and program modules, and finds (should find) nothing
to be done.
The TL build system carefully formulates dependencies as well as
make rules when a tool (such as tangle, ctangle,
and convert) creates several output files. This allows for
parallel builds (make -j n with n>1 or even
make -j) that can considerably speed up the TL build.
If you’re using TL’s Build script, you can enable -j
with the environment variable TL_MAKE_FLAGS, as in:
‘env TL_MAKE_FLAGS=-j`nproc` ./Build’.
Independently, a noticeable speed-up can also be gained by using a
configure cache file, i.e., specifying the configure option
-C (recommended).
Running make dist at the top level creates a tarball
tex-live-yyyy-mm-dd.tar.xz from the TL source
tree. Running make distcheck also verifies that this tarball
suffices to build and install all of TL.
This is useful for checking consistency of the source tree and Makefiles, but the result is not a complete or even usable TeX system, since all the support files are lacking; see Installing. We do not actually distribute any such tarball, and have no plans to do so.
To build one package, the basic idea is to use the configure
option --disable-all-pkgs (see --disable-all-pkgs).
Then all program and library modules are configured but none are made.
However, the Makefiles still contain all build rules and
dependencies and can be invoked to build an individual program or
library, first building any required libraries.
Here is an example from start to finish for working on
dvipdfm-x. Unfortunately, this does not suffice for building
the TeX engines; see the next section.
mkdir mydir && cd mydir # new working directory # Get sources (https://tug.org/texlive/svn), e.g.: rsync -a --delete --exclude=.svn --exclude=Work \ tug.org::tldevsrc/Build/source/ . # Create build directory: mkdir Work && cd Work # Do the configure: ../configure --disable-all-pkgs --enable-dvipdfm-x \ -C CFLAGS=-g CXXFLAGS=-g >&outc || echo fail # Do the make: make >&outm || echo fail # Run the tests: cd texk/dvipdfm-x make check # Run the new binary in the build tree, finding support files # in a separate tree for a TeX Live release YYYY # (Bourne shell syntax): TEXMFROOT=/usr/local/texlive/YYYY \ TEXMFCNF=$TEXMFROOT/texmf-dist/web2c \ ./xdvipdfmx ...
Then you can modify source files in mydir/texk/dvipdfm-x and
rerun make in mydir/Work/texk/dvipdfm-x to rebuild; that
build directory is where the binary ends up and where you can run a
debugger, etc.
The second line of the configure invocation shows examples of
extra things you likely want to specify if you intend to hack the
sources (and not just build binaries): the -C speeds
configure by enabling a cache file, and the CFLAGS and
CXXFLAGS settings eliminate compiler optimization for debugging
purposes.
Of course, you need to actually look at the output and check that
things are working. There are many configure options you can
tweak as desired; check the output from configure --help. It
is also a good idea to run make check after making any changes,
to ensure that whatever tests have been written still pass.
The above retrieves the entire TL source tree (several
hundred megabytes). It is natural to ask if this is really necessary.
Strictly speaking, the answer is no, but it is vastly more convenient
to do so. If you cut down the source tree, you must also give
additional configure flags to individually disable using system
versions of libraries, or the intricacies of the dependencies (such as
teckit requiring zlib) will have undesired side effects.
For an example of this approach, see the build-pdftex.sh script
in the pdftex development source (details at
http://pdftex.org), which is indeed such a cut-down TL source
tree.
By default, the gcc compilers will be used if present;
otherwise, individual packages may use something different. You can
explicitly specify the compilers to be used with the environment
variables CC, CXX, and OBJCXX.
Some libraries and programs require C++11; one such is XeTeX. If you
want to build with an older compiler lacking such support, you need to
(re)move those source directories; unfortunately, specifying
--disable for them does not suffice. It’s also necessary to
specify --disable-xetex explicitly. Specifically, before
running configure --disable-xetex ...:
rm -rf libs/icu libs/graphite2 texk/dvisvgm texk/web2c/xetexdir
Also, even with --disable-all-pkgs, dependencies are (currently)
checked. One notable case: if a (non-MacOS) system does not have
fontconfig, XeTeX cannot be built (see Prerequisites),
and configure will terminate even with --disable-xetex.
To proceed without such dependencies, specify --enable-missing
also.
As of 2022, HarfBuzz also requires C++11. Therefore even more would
have to be disabled and removed, notably including luahbtex,
the standard engine used for LuaLaTeX. Removing that would not
be acceptable for builds intended for distribution; but perhaps for
testing the above information could still be useful.
In general, the TL configure will run in all directories.
Therefore a general workaround for build problems is to remove failing
directories from the tree, and also specify the relevant
--disable-... option(s).
Patches to improve all this would be most welcome.
Unfortunately, there is one common case where the steps in the preceding section to build one package (see Build one package) do not suffice: wanting to build one, or a subset, of the TeX engines (or other Web2c programs).
The simplest way to do this is to disable everything and then explicitly specify what to make. For example, to build only the original TeX:
cd Work # top build directory
../configure --without-x --disable-shared --disable-all-pkgs \
--enable-tex --disable-synctex --disable-xetex \
--enable-missing -C CFLAGS=-g CXXFLAGS=-g
make
cd texk/web2c # cd engine build directory
make tex # must specify target
The first make run will configure everything, and even build
the libraries, even though the packages are disabled.
The source tree can be cut down to just what is needed for the given
engine (the separate pdfTeX and LuaTeX source repositories do
this, for example), but see caveats in previous section. When the
--disable-xetex and --enable-missing options are needed
is also explained in the previous section.
If you want to debug an X-related program or shared library setup, or
other variants, change the configure options
accordingly. Either ../Build or ../configure can be run.
Then it is necessary to again specify the target engine (tex,
in the above) in the make.
All these complications are rather unfortunate. Patches are welcome.
To run only the tests for a given engine, say hitex:
make -C $ww check SUBDIRS=. TESTS='$(hitex_tests)'
where $ww is the web2c build directory, that is,
ww=/wherever/Build/source/Work/texk/web2c.
It’s also possible to run individual tests the same way, using the test name exactly as specified in the .am file:
make -C $ww check SUBDIRS=. TESTS=hitexdir/tests/hello.test
Without the SUBDIRS=., errors like this will show up, since
make will descend into every directory.
fatal: making test-suite.log: failed to create hitexdir/tests/hello.test
If you get tired of looking at the ‘Entering’/‘Leaving
directory’ lines, you can add the (GNU) make option
--no-print-dir.
You may find it useful to put lengthy incantations like this into a
trivial shell script with a short name (say, hitst). Then you
just run hitst and edit the file when necessary to change
things around.
In a cross compilation a build system is used to create binaries to be executed on a host system with different hardware and/or operating system.
In simple cases, the build system can execute binaries for the host
system. This typically occurs for bi-arch systems where, e.g.,
i386-linux binaries can run on x86_64-linux systems and
win32 binaries can run on win64 systems. Although
sometimes called “native cross”, technically this is not cross
compilation at all. In most such cases it suffices to specify
suitable compiler flags. It might be useful to add the configure
option --build=host to get the correct canonical host
name, but note that this should not be --host=host
(see Hosts and Cross-Compilation in GNU Autoconf).
In order to build, e.g., 32-bit binaries with clang on a 64-bit
MacOS system one could use:
TL_BUILD_ENV="CC='clang -arch i386' \ CXX='clang++ -arch i386' \ OBJCXX='clang++ -arch i386'" \ ./Build --build=i386-apple-darwin
In a standard cross compilation, binaries for the host system cannot
execute on the build system and it is necessary to specify the
configure options --host=host and
--build=build with two different values.
Building binaries requires suitable “cross” tools, e.g., compiler,
linker, and archiver, and perhaps a “cross” version of
pkg-config and similar to locate host system libraries.
Autoconf expects that these cross tools are given by their usual
variables or found under their usual name prefixed with
host-. Here a list of such tools and corresponding
variables:
arARfreetype-configFT2_CONFIGg++CXXgccCCicu-configICU_CONFIGobjdumpOBJDUMPpkg-configPKG_CONFIGranlibRANLIBstripSTRIP
In order to, e.g., build mingw32 binaries on
x86_64-linux with a cross compiler found as
i386-pc-mingw32-gcc one would specify
--host=i386-pc-mingw32 --build=x86_64-linux-gnu
or perhaps
--host=mingw32 --build=x86_64-linux CC=i386-pc-mingw32-gcc
but this latter, especially, might require adding CXX and others.
Configure arguments such as CFLAGS=… refer to the cross
compiler. If necessary, you can specify compilers and flags for the
few auxiliary C and C++ programs required for the build process as
configure arguments
BUILDCC=... BUILDCPPFLAGS=... BUILDCFLAGS=... BUILDCXX=... BUILDCXXFLAGS=... BUILDLDFLAGS=...
The fact that binaries for the host system cannot be executed on the build system causes some problems.
One problem is that configure tests using AC_RUN_IFELSE can
compile and link the test program but cannot execute it. Such tests
should be avoided if possible and otherwise must supply a pessimistic
test result.
Another problem arises if the build process must execute some
(auxiliary or installable) programs. Auxiliary programs can be placed
into a subdirectory that is configured natively as is done for
texk/web2c/web2c, texk/dvipsk/squeeze, and
texk/xdvik/squeeze. The module libs/freetype2 uses the
value of CC_BUILD, build-gcc, gcc, or
cc as the compiler for the auxiliary program.
The situation for installable programs needed by the build process is somewhat different. A rather expensive possibility, chosen for the ICU libraries in module libs/icu, is to first compile natively for the build system and in a second step to use these (uninstalled) programs during the cross compilation.
This approach would also be possible for the tools such as
tangle used in the module texk/web2c to build the WEB
programs, but that would require first building a native
kpathsea library. To avoid this complication, cross
compilation of programs written in (C)WEB requires sufficiently recent
installed versions of tangle, ctangle, otangle,
and tie.
Building xindy requires running the host system clisp
binary, thus cross compilation is painful, but possible.
This section discusses the results of make install in the
source tree.
The main consideration is that make install is not enough to
make a usable TeX installation. Beyond the compiled binaries,
(thousands of) support files are needed; just as a first example,
plain.tex is not in the source tree.
These support files are maintained completely independently and are
not present in the TL source tree. The best basis for dealing with them
is the TeX Live (plain text) database in
Master/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb, and/or the TeX Live installer,
install-tl. More information is under Master/tlpkg and
at https://tug.org/texlive/distro.html.
Running make install (or make install-strip) installs
executables in bindir, libraries in libdir,
headers in includedir, general data (including “linked
scripts”, see Linked scripts) in
datarootdir/texmf-dist, man pages in mandir,
and Info files in infodir.
The values of these directories are determined by configure
and can be specified explicitly as options such as
--prefix=prefix or --bindir=bindir;
otherwise, they are given by their usual Autoconf defaults:
prefix /usr/local exec_prefix prefix bindir exec_prefix/bin libdir exec_prefix/lib includedir prefix/include datarootdir prefix/share mandir datarootdir/man infodir datarootdir/info
except possibly modified as follows:
--enable-multiplatform is given,
/platform (i.e., the canonical platform name) is appended
to bindir and libdir. This is implied for a
native TL build.
In a native TL build, datarootdir is set to
prefix, infodir is set to
prefix/texmf-dist/doc/info, and mandir to
prefix/texmf-dist/doc/man, corresponding to the
directories used in the TL distribution.
The top-level configure script displays all these installation paths.
For the native TL build, the Build script leaves the binaries
in ./inst/bin/std-system-triplet. The new binaries are
not directly usable from that location; they need to be copied to
Master/bin/tl-platform. The other files and directories
that end up in ./inst/ are ignored.
Quite a few executables are architecture-independent shell, Perl, or other interpreted scripts, rather than compiled binaries. A few are maintained as part of the TL source tree, but most are maintained elsewhere with copies under texk/texlive/linked_scripts.
These so-called linked scripts are installed under
datarootdir/texmf-dist/scripts; for Unix-like systems a
symbolic link is made in bindir. For example, a symlink
points from bindir/ps2eps to
datarootdir/texmf-dist/scripts/ps2eps/ps2eps.pl. For
Windows, a standard wrapper binary (copied to, e.g.,
bindir/ps2eps.exe) serves the same purpose. The source
for the wrapper is in texk/texlive/windows_wrapper.
One reason for this is to avoid having many copies of the same script; a more important reason is that it guarantees the scripts will stay in sync across the different supported operating systems.
Most important of all, we want the bindir resulting from
the build to be as close as possible to what is in the TL
distribution. At present, there are a few exceptions—Asymptote,
Biber, Xindy—and each one creates considerable extra work. We don’t
want to add more. (See https://tug.org/texlive/build.html for
information about building those exceptions, as well as the xz
and wget programs that are used in the TL infrastructure.)
Although they use the same code base, building for the native TL distribution as shipped by the TeX user groups is typically quite different from a “distro” build needed by, e.g., a full GNU/Linux or BSD operating system distribution.
The native TL distribution uses shared libraries only when absolutely necessary (libc, libm, X11 libraries, and libfontconfig). In contrast, a distro typically wants to use as many shared libraries as possible from elsewhere on the system, including TeX-specific libraries such as libkpathsea (even though Kpathsea has never officially been released as a shared library). In addition, the installation paths will, in general, be completely different.
Here are the configure options that distro builds are likely to
find most relevant:
--disable-native-texlive-buildThis must be specified to avoid interference from the many tweaks we do for the native TL build.
--with-banner-add=/SomeDistroThis isn’t technically required, but is strongly recommended, so your build and your distro can be distinguished from others.
--enable-sharedBuild shared versions of the TeX-specific libraries (uses
libtool).
--disable-staticDo not build the static versions of the TeX-specific libraries.
--with-system-libLook for and use a system version of the library lib.
configure --help will give you the list of possibilities.
--with-lib-includes=dir--with-lib-libdir=dirIf needed, allows you to specify where the headers/code are for the given library lib.
--prefix=/usr--prefix=/opt/TeXLiveOr whatever your convention is. The default is /usr/local and you shouldn’t install there for a distro.
--libdir=\${exec_prefix}/lib64May be needed for 64-bit bi-architecture (GNU/Linux) systems.
You will need to take care of the support files mentioned above (see Installing), and many other issues, such as font maps, languages, and formats, independently of the build. Norbert Preining has written a detailed article on adapting TL for distros: https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb34-3/tb108preining-distro.pdf. (If the article needs updating in the future, perhaps we will merge it into this document.)
The TeX Live source tree is the subtree rooted at Build/source of
the complete TL distribution and contains the sources for all executables
distributed by TL, as well as configure scripts and make
rules to build and install them together with some of their support
files.
As mentioned above (see Prerequisites), a normal build has few requirements. On the other hand, if you want to modify the TeX Live infrastructure sources, such as configure.ac or Makefile.am files, you will need to have several additional tools installed.
In general, the TL build system uses the latest released versions of
the GNU build tools, installed directly from the original GNU releases
(e.g., by building them with configure --prefix=/usr/local/gnu
and having PATH start with /usr/local/gnu/bin). We have
found that trying to use the versions of these tools packaged for
distros causes many extra hassles, so don’t do that, tempting as it
may be.
Currently the versions we use are:
autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.72 automake (GNU automake) 1.16.5 bison (GNU Bison) 3.8.2 flex 2.6.0 ltmain.sh (GNU libtool) 2.4.7 m4 (GNU M4) 1.4.19 makeinfo (GNU texinfo) 7.1
These versions should be used to update the generated files (e.g.,
configure or Makefile.in) in all or parts of the TL tree
after their dependencies have been changed. This can be done
explicitly with the top-level reautoconf script or implicitly
by using the configure option --enable-maintainer-mode.
It has often turned out that the bison and flex versions are not critical; however, the autotools versions are. If you don’t have the given versions, get them before modifying the build infrastructure.
The files in the Subversion repository (see https://tug.org/texlive/svn) are all up to date (barring bugs). For this to be reflected by their timestamps in your checkout, be sure to set use-commit-times=yes in ~/.subversion/config or the equivalent.
If timestamps are wrong, you may also be able to avoid unnecessary
runs of bison, flex, or makeinfo with
touch of the generated (.c, .h, or .info)
files. With --enable-maintainer-mode it may also be necessary
to touch first aclocal.m4, then configure and
config.h.in (or c-auto.in), and finally all
Makefile.in files.
Here is a brief description of the top-level directories in the TeX Live source tree.
As mentioned at the beginning of see Overview of build system, the main source directories are texk/ (TeX-specific programs and libraries), utils/ (additional programs), and libs/ (generic libraries).
In addition, the top-level directories am/ and m4/ contain Makefile.am fragments and Autoconf macros, respectively, used in many places. Specifically, the file m4/kpse-pkgs.m4 contains lists of all program and library modules; missing modules are silently ignored. (This helps in creating cut-down source trees.)
Each module contributes fragments (in separate files) defining its
capabilities and requirements to the configure.ac scripts at
the top-level and in the subdirectories libs, utils, and
texk. The fragments from program modules supply
configure options to disable or enable building them; those
from library modules specify if an installed (system) version of that
library can be used. This ultimately determines which modules need to
be built—although all modules must be configured for the benefit of
make targets such as dist or distcheck.
The top-level build-aux/ directory contains the common files
compile, config.guess, config.sub,
depcomp, etc. used by most packages. These are taken from the
GNU Gnulib sources (https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib), which
in turn synchronizes with any ultimate upstream repository. There are
independent copies of some of these in a few other places, e.g.,
libs/freetype2/freetype-*/builds/unix/. The reautoconf
script does not touch those, but a TL cron job keeps them in sync
(nightly).
When the top-level ./Build script is used to build TL, two more
two more top-level directories appear: Work/ for the build tree,
and inst/ for the install tree (from make install).
These names (and everything else about Build’s operation) can
be changed by setting environment variables before running it; see the
script source.
Here we describe a few of the Autoconf macros used in several
modules—many more are defined in the sources; see the top-level
m4/ directory. These general macros are supplemented by
module-specific macros in directories such as texk/dvipng/m4/;
some of those are described in following sections (see Library modules and Program modules).
The TL sources use two general setup macros:
Initialize the basic TL infrastructure for module name:
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign more-options])
AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
KPSE_COMPILER_WARNINGS
and make sure the C compiler understands function prototypes. This is
used for all generic library and program modules.
Like KPSE_BASIC but add:
LT_PREREQ([2.2.6])
LT_INIT([win32-dll])
AC_SYS_LARGEFILE
AC_FUNC_FSEEKO
along with checks for frequently used functions,
headers, types, and structures. This is used for TeX-specific
modules.
Macros for program checks:
Set LATEX to the first of latex, elatex, or
lambda which exists in PATH, or to no if none of
them exists. Call AC_SUBST for LATEX. The result of
this test can be overridden by setting the LATEX environment
variable or the cache variable ac_cv_prog_LATEX.
Check for pdflatex in PATH and set PDFLATEX.
Check for perl or perl5 in PATH and set
PERL.
Call AC_PROG_LEX and add the flag -l for flex.
Macros for compiler-related checks:
When using the (Objective) C/C++ compiler, set
WARNING_[OBJ]C[XX]FLAGS to suitable warning flags (depending on
the value given to or implied for --enable-compiler-warnings).
Call AC_SUBST for them. At present this assumes GNU compiler
warning options, but could be extended to others if necessary.
This macro caches its results in the kpse_cv_warning_cflags,
… variables.
When using the C or C++ compiler, try to set
VISIBILITY_C[XX]FLAGS to flags to hide external symbols. Call
AC_SUBST for this variable. At present this only tests for
the compiler option -fvisibility=hidden, but could be
extended if necessary.
This macro caches its results in the kpse_cv_visibility_cflags
or kpse_cv_visibility_cxxflags variable.
Provide the configure option --enable-cxx-runtime-hack. If
enabled and when using g++, try to statically link with
libstdc++, notably improving portability of the resulting
binary.
This macro caches its result in the kpse_cv_cxx_hack variable.
One macro for a library check:
Call AC_SYS_LARGEFILE and AC_FUNC_FSEEKO and append
suitable -D flags (optionally including
-Dextra-define) to variable.
Each library module libs/lib or texk/lib is
supplemented by a macro KPSE_LIB_FLAGS (all uppercase)
that provides make variables for that library. E.g., for
libs/libpng:
Provide the configure option --with-system-libpng. Set and
AC_SUBST make variables for modules using this library (either
an installed version or from the TeX Live tree):
LIBPNG_INCLUDES | for use in CPPFLAGS, |
LIBPNG_LIBS | for use in LDADD, |
LIBPNG_DEPEND | for use as a Makefile dependency, |
LIBPNG_RULE | for the make rules to rebuild the library. |
Temporarily extend CPPFLAGS and LIBS with the values required
for the library module name.
Restore CPPFLAGS and LIBS to their original values.
As an example, the configure.ac file for a hypothetical program utils/foo using libpng, and hence zlib, would contain
KPSE_ZLIB_FLAGS KPSE_LIBPNG_FLAGS
and its Makefile.am would be along these lines:
bin_PROGRAMS = foo
AM_CPPFLAGS = ${LIBPNG_INCLUDES} ${ZLIB_INCLUDES}
foo_LDADD = ${LIBPNG_LIBS} ${ZLIB_LIBS}
foo_DEPENDENCIES = ${ZLIB_DEPEND} ${LIBPNG_DEPEND}
## Rebuild libz
@ZLIB_RULE@
## Rebuild libpng
@LIBPNG_RULE@
If it were necessary to examine whether certain zlib or libpng features were available, configure.ac should be continued this way:
KPSE_ADD_FLAGS([zlib]) ... # tests for zlib features, if any KPSE_ADD_FLAGS([libpng]) ... # tests for libpng features KPSE_RESTORE_FLAGS # restoreCPPFLAGSandLIBS
Windows differs in several aspects from Unix-like systems, many of them due to the lack of symbolic links.
Check if compiling for a Windows system. The result is either
no for Unix-like systems (including Cygwin), mingw32 for
Windows with GCC, or native for Windows with MSVC. The result
is cached in the kpse_cv_have_win32 variable.
Call KPSE_CHECK_WIN32 and define the Automake conditional
WIN32 (true if the value of kpse_cv_have_win32 is
not no).
Call KPSE_COND_WIN32 and define the Automake conditional
MINGW32 (true if the value of kpse_cv_have_win32 is
mingw32).
Call KPSE_COND_WIN32 and define the Automake conditional
WIN32_WRAP (true if the standard Windows wrapper
(texk/texlive/windows_wrapper/runscript.exe) exists. This wrapper
is used on Windows instead of symlinks for the “linked scripts”
(see Linked scripts).
Call KPSE_COND_WIN32 and check if the file
texk/texlive/windows_wrapper/callexe.c exists; if it does, create a
symlink in the build tree. Compiling callexe.c with
-DEXEPROG='"foo.exe"' and installing callexe.exe
as bar.exe is used on Windows instead of a symlink
bar->foo for Unix-like systems.
Here we discuss some specifics for a few of the libraries in TL, both for the details themselves, and as a way of illuminating the general structure and variation.
png library in libs/libpngzlib library in libs/zlibfreetype library in libs/freetype2kpathsea library in texk/kpathseapng library in libs/libpng ¶The “generic” png library uses the source tree in the
subdirectory libpng-src/, with all modifications for TL
recorded in TLpatches/*. The configure.ac fragment
ac/withenable.ac contains
KPSE_WITH_LIB([libpng], [zlib])
to specify the module name and indicate the dependency on
zlib. A third literal argument ‘tree’ would specify that
the library from the TeX Live tree cannot be replaced by a system
version. That not being the case here, a second fragment
ac/libpng.ac contains
KPSE_TRY_LIB([libpng],
[#include <png.h>],
[png_structp png; png_voidp io; png_rw_ptr fn;
png_set_read_fn(png, io, fn);])
thus providing the simple C code
#include <png.h>
int main ()
{ png_structp png; png_voidp io; png_rw_ptr fn;
png_set_read_fn(png, io, fn);
return 0; }
which Autoconf uses to verify the usability of a system
version with C code. The analogous macro KPSE_TRY_LIBXX would
check using C++. These fragments are included by the
configure.ac at the top level of TL
(Build/source/configure.ac).
For this library, like many other modules, a proxy build system for TL is used, consisting of our own configure.ac, Makefile.am, include/Makefile.am; the distributed build system is not used. (Consequently, a few generated files and auxiliary scripts are removed from the distributed source tree.)
The public headers png.h, pngconf.h, and pnglibconf.h are “installed” (as symlinks) under include/ in the build tree exactly as they are for a system version under, e.g., /usr/include/.
The module is supplemented by the file m4/kpse-libpng-flags.m4
that defines the M4 macro KPSE_LIBPNG_FLAGS used by all modules
depending on this library in their configure.ac to generate the
make variables LIBPNG_INCLUDES for use in
CPPFLAGS, LIBPNG_LIBS for use in LDADD,
LIBPNG_DEPEND for use as dependencies, and LIBPNG_RULE
for the make rules to rebuild the library.
m4/kpse-libpng-flags.m4 also supplies the configure option
--with-system-libpng, which then uses pkg-config to
determine the flags required for the system library.
zlib library in libs/zlib ¶This generic library is very much analogous to libpng, but
without the dependency on any other library. The file
m4/kpse-zlib-flags.m4 supplies the configure option
--with-system-zlib, as well as --with-zlib-includes and
--with-zlib-libdir to specify non-standard locations of the
zlib headers and/or library.
freetype library in libs/freetype2 ¶This module uses a wrapper build system. In contrast to the proxy
build described earlier, the wrapper build has an almost trivial
configure.ac and a Makefile.am which invokes the
configure and make in the distributed source, followed
by make install with the TL build tree as destination. In
other words, this actually uses the build system provided by upstream
(possibly patched).
The flags required for the system library are obtained through
freetype-config.
kpathsea library in texk/kpathsea ¶This is one of the TeX-specific libraries that are maintained as
part of TeX Live (see Kpathsea
(tug.org/kpathsea)); the other is ptexenc. These
TeX libraries are Libtool libraries (static and/or shared) and are
installed by make install together with the programs. They
are, however, not part of the TL DVD as distributed by TeX user
groups, and have never been officially released for standalone use.
It is possible, and probably useful for distro builds (see Distro builds), to specify the configure option
--with-system-kpathsea in order to use a system version of the
library. Programs outside the TL tree should use pkg-config
for the required flags.
In addition to kpathsea/ac/withenable.ac and
kpathsea/ac/kpathsea.ac here there is a third fragment
kpathsea.ac/mktex.ac, included by both withenable.ac and
configure.ac, which supplies configure options such as
--enable-mktextfm-default. These determine the compile time
default of whether or not to run mktextfm (and similar) to
generate a missing .tfm (or whatever) file. In any case,
however, the command line options -mktex=tfm or
-no-mktex=tfm for the TeX-like engines override this
default.
As with libraries (see Library modules), here we discuss the details for a few of the programs in TL.
t1utils package in utils/t1utilsxindy package in utils/xindyxdvik package in texk/xdvikt1utils package in utils/t1utils ¶Here we use the distributed source tree t1utils-src with modifications documented in TLpatches/* and a proxy build system consisting of configure.ac and Makefile.am. The fragment ac/withenable.ac contains
KPSE_ENABLE_PROG([t1utils])
specifying the module name without any dependencies, and
supplies the configure option --disable-t1utils.
xindy package in utils/xindy ¶This module uses the distributed source tree xindy-src/ with modifications documented in TLpatches/*, and a wrapper configure.ac and Makefile.am that descends into xindy-src.
The xindy build requires a make that supports a
VPATH build, can handle all targets, and does not refer to
${top_srcdir} or ${top_builddir}. The fragment
xindy/ac/withenable.ac contains
KPSE_ENABLE_PROG([xindy], , [disable]) m4_include(kpse_TL[utils/xindy/ac/xindy.ac]) m4_include(kpse_TL[utils/xindy/ac/clisp.ac])
where disable in the third argument indicates that
xindy is only built if explicitly enabled by the user with
configure --enable-xindy (the need for clisp makes it
too painful to enable by default).
The additional fragments ac/xindy.ac and ac/clisp.ac
specify more configure options to be seen at the top level,
with ac/xindy.ac also included by configure.ac.
xdvik package in texk/xdvik ¶This package is maintained as part of the TeX Live tree with sources in
its own directory (texk/xdvik/). The fragment
xdvik/ac/withenable.ac contains
dnl extra_dirs = texk/xdvik/squeeze KPSE_ENABLE_PROG([xdvik], [kpathsea freetype2], [x]) m4_include(kpse_TL[texk/xdvik/ac/xdvik.ac])
thus specifying dependencies on the kpathsea,
freetype, and X11 libraries. The M4 comment (following
dnl) signals the subsidiary squeeze/configure.ac. This
is needed because the main executable xdvi-bin (to be installed
as, e.g., xdvi-xaw) is for the host system whereas the
auxiliary program squeeze/squeeze has to run on the
build system; in a cross compilation, these differ.
The additional fragment ac/xdvik.ac is also included by
configure.ac and supplies the configure option
--with-xdvi-x-toolkit also seen at the top level.
This subdirectory contains the sources for asy and xasy but due to its complexity and prerequisites (e.g., OpenGL) it is not part of the TL build system. These programs must be built and installed independently, but are included on the TL DVD together with their support files. See https://tug.org/texlive/build.html#asymptote.
This section outlines the basic process for adding new packages to the TL build system.
In any case, a new package directory foo should contain the original sources, modified only with changes necessary for TL, in foo/foo-src. The changes should be documented in foo/TLpatches/*, and also be submitted upstream whenever reasonable. In addition, foo/ will need the usual Automake build-related files (configure.ac, Makefile.am, etc. Please maintain foo/ChangeLog for all TL changes.
A TeX-specific program module in a subdirectory
texk/prog may use the TeX-specific libraries and is
included by adding its name prog to the M4 list
kpse_texk_pkgs defined in m4/kpse-pkgs.m4.
A generic program module in a subdirectory utils/prog
must not use the TeX-specific libraries and is included by adding
its name prog to the M4 list kpse_utils_pkgs in
m4/kpse-pkgs.m4.
In either case, the subdirectory texk/prog or
utils/prog must provide a fragment
ac/withenable.ac that contains the M4 macro
KPSE_ENABLE_PROG defined in m4/kpse-setup.m4 with
prog as the mandatory first argument and three optional
arguments:
disable if this module is not to be
built without the configure option --enable-prog,
native if cross compilation is not possible, x if the
program requires X11 libraries;
configure
option --enable-prog or --disable-prog.
If the module requires specific configure options to be seen at
the top level, they should be defined in an additional fragment
ac/prog.ac included from ac/withenable.ac and
configure.ac.
Usually, the new program is maintained somewhere outside of TeX Live. In
that case, as above, we put the upstream sources into a subdirectory
prog-src (e.g., utils/newprog/newprog-src). We do
not typically run configure in this original ...-src
directory, but only in our own directory; but we do compile using the
source files in ...-src.
So, to summarize the files that must (usually) be created inside a new TL source directory (texk/newprog or utils/newprog):
The KPSE_ENABLE_PROG call just explained.
By merging the contents of the original configure.ac (if
provided) and a comparable program already in TL. In the above
example, one line that will be needed in configure.ac (can be
added before the AC_CONFIG_FILES at the end) is:
AC_SUBST([NEWPROG_TREE], [newprog-src])
and then use @NEWPROG_TREE@ in
Makefile.am where needed.
In general, there is no magic recipe for this part of the job. It’s necessary to think about what needs to be done in the original vs. in TeX Live. It’s useful to look at the setup for the most comparable programs already in TL that you can find. It’s also useful to grep the entire Build/source tree for whatever you can think of to investigate how something is done. Most of the TL-specific macros are defined in Build/source/m4/*.
First actions taken after getting the original source tree; typically removal of derived or unused common files.
If any changes are needed to the original sources, record the patches here so they can be applied next time. Also, send them upstream so that we don’t have to maintain them forever.
Record all TL-specific changes, now and in the future.
After populating the new TL source directory (.../newprog/, in
the above), run GNU autoreconf there (see Build system tools). Once that works, if you are the one who’s eventually going
to commit the new package, svn add the necessary files,
including the generated Makefile.in aclocal.m4 configure, and
svn:ignore the Automake cache autom4te.cache. (This is
so people checking out the TL source tree do not have to run any
autotools, but can simply run configure.)
To reiterate: do not fail to commit the generated configure and other files. The m4 code in kpse-pkgs.m4 uses the existence of configure to determine whether to descend into (and configure) a given subdirectory.
Then, run the TL tool reautoconf in the top-level TL
Build/source/ directory, to incorporate the new program into
the build tree. It is good to then rebuild the whole tree (e.g., using
TL’s Build/Build script) to get all the necessary files generated.
It will probably fail. So then you need to keep at it until the
program compiles and tests successfully. The most efficient way is to
rerun autoreconf as needed in the new source directory
(Build/source/.../newprog), then make in the
corresponding build directory (Build/work/.../newprog), then
make check, etc. In the end, also make sure that the whole tree
builds from scratch.
After final success, don’t forget to commit. (Or email the TL maintainers with the patch.)
Adding a new TeX engine is not completely different from adding a program, but it’s not all that similar, either. In this case, the main work is done by creating a new subdirectory of texk/web2c/ for the engine. The subdirectory is conventionally named ending in dir, like pdftexdir and xetexdir, to avoid clashes with executable names.
The source files for the new engine should be put in this newenginedir subdirectory. Also, a file newenginedir/am/newengine.am (e.g., pdftexdir/am/pdftex.am is needed with the Makefile fragment needed to build it.
The overall web2c/Makefile.am needs to have an include statement added to insert that newengine.am file.
In web2c/ac/web2c.ac, a line needs to be added in the
definition of the kpse_tex_progs variable to include it in the
build. That line specifies whether the new engine is built by default,
and the additional libraries requires.
For examples of building engines in CWEB, you can check the existing hitexdir and mplibdir directories; these are somewhat simpler than LuaTeX. Of course, every engine will have its own unique features and requirements, so existing examples will only take you so far.
Web2c is built as one “package”, with each subdirectory’s .am
fragment inserted with an Automake include. This means that,
for instance, $(srcdir) is .../web2c, not
.../webdir/enginedir. It is a difficult setup to come to terms
with, but the alternative is to recurse into each engine subdirectory,
and that would be far worse (see Directories in GNU
Automake).
A generic library module in a subdirectory libs/lib must
not depend on TeX-specific libraries, by definition. It is
included by adding its name lib to the M4 macro
kpse_libs_pkgs in m4/kpse-pkgs.m4—before any other
libraries from the TeX Live tree on which it depends.
As with program modules, the subdirectory libs/lib must
contain the sources and build system for the library (and any
installable support programs) and a fragment ac/withenable.ac
that contains the M4 macro KPSE_WITH_LIB defined in
m4/kpse-setup.m4 with lib as the mandatory first
argument and two optional arguments: a list of required libraries from
the TL tree, and a list of options: for libraries, currently there is
only one—specify tree if this library cannot be replaced by a
system version.
If a system version can be used, a second fragment
ac/lib.ac is needed, containing the M4 macro
KPSE_TRY_LIB (or KPSE_TRY_LIBXX) with lib
as the mandatory first argument and two additional arguments for the
Autoconf macro AC_LANG_PROGRAM used to compile and link a small
C (or C++) program as sanity check for using the system library.
In addition a file m4/kpse-lib-flags (at the top level)
must define the M4 macro KPSE_LIB_FLAGS (all uppercase)
setting up the make variables LIB_INCLUDES,
LIB_LIBS, LIB_DEPEND, and
LIB_RULE with the values required for CPPFLAGS,
LDADD, dependencies, and a (multi-line) make rule to
rebuild the library when necessary. All of that is needed for the
library from the TL tree and, if supported, for a system version.
If a system library is allowed, KPSE_LIB_FLAGS also
provides the configure option --with-system-lib and uses
the additional M4 macro KPSE_LIB_SYSTEM_FLAGS to generate
the make variables for a system library. In addition, the
definition of the M4 macro KPSE_ALL_SYSTEM_FLAGS in
m4/kpse-pkgs.m4 must be extended by the line:
AC_REQUIRE([KPSE_LIB_SYSTEM_FLAGS])
A TeX-specific library module in a subdirectory texk/lib may depend on other TeX-specific libraries but must not depend on any generic library from the TL tree. It is included in the same general ways as a generic library (see the previous section), with these modifications:
lib is added to the M4 macro
kpse_texlibs_pkgs, which is also in m4/kpse-pkgs.m4.
ac/withenable.ac must use KPSE_WITH_TEXLIB.
Corresponding to the large number of program and library modules there
are a large number configure options, most of which are
described here. The command
configure --help
at the
top level gives an exhaustive list of all global options and a few
important module-specific ones, whereas, e.g.,
texk/lcdf-typetools/configure --help
also displays the
lcdf-typetools specific options, which are not shown at the
top level.
The help text also mentions several influential environment variables, but for TeX Live it is better to specify them as assignments on the command line.
The ./Build script used to make the binaries shipped with TeX Live
invokes the top-level configure with a few additional options
(see Building). The defaults discussed below are those for the
actual configure script; invoking configure via
./Build yields different results.
Defaults for most options are set at the top level and propagated explicitly to all subdirectories. Options specified on the command line are checked for consistency but never modified.
Here are the global configure options.
--disable-native-texlive-build--prefix, --bindir, …--disable-largefile--disable-missing--enable-compiler-warnings=level--enable-cxx-runtime-hack--enable-maintainer-mode--enable-multiplatform--enable-shared--enable-silent-rules--without-ln-s--without-x--disable-native-texlive-build ¶If enabled (the default), build for a TL binary distribution as
shipped by the TeX user groups. This requires GNU make and
implies --enable-multiplatform and
--enable-cxx-runtime-hack (unless they are explicitly disabled),
and enforces --disable-shared.
If building TL for a GNU/Linux or other distribution, this should be disabled and system versions of most libraries should be used (see Distro builds).
A related option, --enable-texlive-build, is automatically
passed to all subdirectories (and cannot be disabled). Subdirectories
that can also be built independently from the TL tree (such as
utils/xindy and texk/dvipng) but cooperate with TL can
use this option to enable TL-specific adaptations, such as
installation paths.
--prefix, --bindir, … ¶These standard Autoconf options specify various installation directories as usual. For the complete list, see Installation directories.
Also as usual, all values are prefixed by the value of DESTDIR,
if set, on the make command line (see Installation in a temporary location in GNU Automake).
--disable-largefile ¶Omit large file support (LFS), which is needed on most 32-bit Unix
systems for files with 2GB or more. Regardless of this option, the
size of DVI and GF files must always be <2GB, due
to the file format specifications.
With LFS, there is no fixed limit on the size of PDF files created by pdftex or PostScript files created by dvips.
--disable-missing ¶Immediately terminate the build process if a requested program or feature must be disabled, e.g., due to missing libraries. This can help when figuring out a specific (sub)set of modules to enable.
--enable-compiler-warnings=level ¶Enable various levels of compiler warnings for C, C++, and/or
Objective C: the level value can be one of: no min
yes max all. The default is yes in maintainer-mode
(see below) and min otherwise. This option defines the
variables WARNING_[OBJ]C[XX]FLAGS, but these variables are not
consistently used in all library and program modules. At present,
these warning flags assume options from the GNU compilers.
--enable-cxx-runtime-hack ¶If enabled (as it is for the native TL build), when using g++,
try to statically link with libstdc++, thus improving
portability of the resulting binary. See Macros for compilers.
--enable-maintainer-mode ¶Enable make rules and dependencies not useful (and sometimes
confusing) to the casual user. This requires current versions of the
GNU build tools (see Build system tools), as it automatically
rebuilds infrastructure files as needed. See missing and AM_MAINTAINER_MODE in GNU Automake.
--enable-multiplatform ¶If enabled (as it is for the native TL build) and
--bindir=dir or --libdir=dir are not
specified, install executables and libraries in per-platform
subdirectories of eprefix/bin and
eprefix/lib where eprefix is the value given or
implied for exec_prefix. In any case, the values for
bindir and libdir are automatically propagated to all
subdirectories.
--enable-silent-rules ¶Enable the use of less verbose build rules. When using GNU
make (or any make implementation supporting nested
variable expansions), you can specify V=1 on the make
command line to get more verbosity, or V=0 to get less,
regardless of this option.
--without-ln-s ¶Required when using a system without a working ln -s to build
binaries for a Unix-like system. However, make install will
not create anything useful, and might fail.
Here are (some of) the program-specific configure options.
--enable-prog, --disable-prog--disable-all-pkgs--disable-all-pkgs ¶Do not build any program modules by default—only those explicitly
enabled. This is useful when one wants to work on only a single
program, which is specified with an additional --enable option,
e.g., --enable-dvipdfm-x. It’s still simplest to check out and
configure the whole source tree, but at least only the program you are
interested in, and its dependencies, are built. See Build one package.
Without this option, all modules are built except those that are
explicitly disabled or specify disable in their
ac/withenable.ac fragment.
--with-banner-add=str
Add str to the
default version string (which is ‘TeX Live year’ or
‘Web2C year’) appended to banner lines. This is ignored
for a native TL build, but distro builds should specify, e.g.,
/SomeDistro.
--with-editor=cmd
Specify the command
cmd to invoke from the e option of TeX and friends,
replacing the default vi +%d '%s' for Unix or texworks
--position=%d "%s" for Windows.
--with-fontconfig-includes=dir,
--with-fontconfig-libdir=dir
Building XeTeX on
non-Mac systems requires the fontconfig library headers and
code. If one or both of these options are given, the required flags
are derived from them; otherwise, they are determined via
pkg-config (if present).
--with-mf-x-toolkit
Use the X toolkit (libXt) for
Metafont (the default is to use the lowest-level Xlib support;
it seems this has the best chance of working across X installations
nowadays).
--disable-dump-share
Make the fmt/base
dump files architecture dependent (somewhat faster on LittleEndian
architectures).
--disable-ipc
Disable TeX’s --ipc option.
--disable-mf-nowin
Do not build a separate
non-graphically-capable Metafont (mf-nowin).
--disable-tex, --enable-etex, …
Do not or
do build the various TeX, Metafont, and MetaPost engines (defaults are
defined in the fragment texk/web2c/ac/web2c.ac).
--disable-web-progs
Do not build the original WEB programs
bibtex, …, weave. Useful if, e.g., you only want
to (re)build some engines.
--enable-auto-core
This option causes TeX and Metafont
to produce a core dump when a particular hacky filename is
encountered, for use in creating preloaded binaries. This is rarely
done nowadays.
--enable-libtool-hack
If enabled (which is the default for all platforms), prevents
libtool from linking explicitly with dependencies of
libfontconfig such as libexpat.
--enable-*win
Include various types of non-X window
support for Metafont (EPSF output, mftalk, old graphics
terminals, …).
--enable-tex-synctex, --disable-etex-synctex,
…
Build the TeX engines with or without SyncTeX
support; ignored for a native TeX Live build. Defaults are defined in
texk/web2c/ac/web2c.ac.
--disable-synctex
Do not build the SyncTeX library and tool.
The programs bibtex8 and bibtexu have been merged into the
module bibtex-x (extended BibTeX).
--disable-bibtex8
Do not build the bibtex8 program.
--disable-bibtexu
Do not build the bibtexu program
(building bibtexu requires ICU libraries).
The former modules dvipdfmx (extended DVI to PDF converter) and
xdvipdfmx (the same, as used by XeTeX) have been merged into
dvipdfm-x at the source level. Two separate binaries are still
created by default. In addition, dvipdfm is created as a
symlink to dvipdfmx, with backward-compatible (very slightly
different) behavior.
--disable-dvipdfmx
Do not build the dvipdfmx
program or make the dvipdfm symlink.
--disable-xdvipdfmx
Do not build the xdvipdfmx
program.
--with-system-libgs
Build dvisvgm using installed
Ghostscript (gs) headers and library (not allowed for a native
TL build). The default is to load the gs library at runtime if
possible, else to disable support for PostScript specials.
--without-libgs
Build dvisvgm without PostScript
support at all. Because the dynamic loading just mentioned defeats all
attempts at static linking, the result can crash due to library
incompatibilities, e.g., on CentOS 5.
--with-libgs-includes=dir,
--with-libgs-libdir=dir
Specify non-standard locations
of the Ghostscript headers and library.
--disable-linked-scripts
Do not install the “linked
scripts” (see Linked scripts), except for the TL scripts required
to run texlinks.
--with-gs=filename
Hardwire the location of Ghostscript
(gs) as called by Xdvik.
--with-xdvi-x-toolkit=kit
Use toolkit
kit for xdvik, one of: motif xaw xaw3d
neXtaw. The default is motif if available, else xaw.
--enable-xi2-scrolling
Use XInput 2.1 “smooth scrolling”
if available (default: yes, except for a native TL build).
--enable-xindy-rules
Build and install xindy rules
(default: yes, except for a native TL build).
--enable-xindy-docs
Build and install xindy
documentation (default: yes, except for a native TL build).
--with-clisp-runtime=filename
Specifies the
full path for the Clisp runtime file (lisp.run or
lisp.exe) to be installed. When specified as default
(the default for a native TL build) the path is determined by the
Clisp executable; the value system (not allowed for a native TL
build, but the default otherwise) indicates that xindy will use
the installed version of clisp (which must be identical to the
one used to build xindy).
Here are (some of) the library-specific configure options,
starting with this generic one:
--with-system-lib
Use an installed (system) version of the library lib;
this option exists for most libraries, but is not allowed for a native
TL build. Using a system version implies also using the system
versions of all libraries that lib depends on.
For many libraries --with-lib-includes=dir and
--with-lib-libdir=dir can specify non-standard
search locations; others use pkg-config or similar to determine
the required flags.
The top-level configure script performs a consistency check for all required system libraries and bails out if tests fail.
kpathsea ¶--enable-cmd-default,
--disable-cmd-default
Determine the compile time default
for whether or not to run cmd, which is one of:
mkocp(Omega compiled translation process file)
mkofm(Omega font metrics file)
mktexfmt(format/base dump file)
mktexmf(Metafont source)
mktexpk(PK bitmap font)
mktextex(TeX source)
mktextfm(TFM file)
to generate the specified type of file dynamically.
The default can be overridden by the user in any case
(see The kpathsea library in texk/kpathsea).
The values for these variables can be specified as configure
arguments of the form VAR=value. They can also be
defined in the environment, but that might not work for cross
compilations.
CC ¶CXX ¶CPPFLAGS ¶And plenty more. As usual with Autoconf, these variables specify the name (or full path) of compilers, preprocessor flags, and similar. See Preset Output Variables in GNU Autoconf.
CLISP ¶Name (or full path) of the clisp executable, used to build
xindy.
FT2_CONFIG ¶ICU_CONFIG ¶PKG_CONFIG ¶These specify the name (or path) for the freetype-config, icu-config, and pkg-config commands used to determine the flags required for system versions of libfreetype, the ICU libraries, and other libraries, respectively.
KPSEWHICH ¶Name (or path) of an installed kpsewhich binary, used by
make check to determine the location of, e.g.,
cmbx10.tfm.
MAKE ¶SED ¶And more. Name (or path) of the make, sed, and similar
programs; used at the top level and propagated to all subdirectories.
PERL ¶LATEX ¶PDFLATEX ¶Name (or full path) for the perl, latex, and pdflatex
commands used, e.g., to build the xindy documentation.
Ideally, building all of TeX Live with
--enable-compiler-warnings=max should produce no (GCC) compiler
warnings at all. In spite of considerable efforts into that direction
we are still far from that goal and there are reasons that we may
never fully reach it. Below are some rules about declarations of
functions or variables and the use of const. These rules
should be applied to the code maintained in the TeX Live tree and for
other packages whose maintainers are willing to accept patches.
The TeX Live build system no longer supports pre-ANSI C compilers. Thus
all function prototypes and definitions must conform to the ANSI C
standard (including void in the declaration of C functions with
no parameters). On the other hand, TL is built for a wide variety of
systems, not all of which support the C99 standard. Therefore using
C99 features should be avoided if that can easily be done. In
particular, C code must not contain declarations after statements or
C++-style comments.
If some C99 (or later) constructs must be used, the module should
verify that they are available and otherwise provide an alternative.
For example, the module texk/chktex uses the C99 function
stpcpy() that may or may not be available on a particular
system. It uses AC_CHECK_DECLS([stpcpy]) in
configure.ac to test this, and provides a perhaps
less efficient alternative (in the file Utility.h):
#if !(defined HAVE_DECL_STPCPY && HAVE_DECL_STPCPY)
static inline char *stpcpy(char *dest, const char *src)
{
return strcpy(dest, src) + strlen(src);
}
#endif
Functions used in only one file should be declared static; they
require no prototype except in forward declarations.
Functions not declared static, usually because they are used in
several files, require an (extern) prototype in exactly one
header file, which is included in the file defining the function and
in all files using that function—this is the only way to guarantee
consistency between definition and use. There should be no
extern declarations sprinkled throughout the C code (with or
without comments as to where that function is defined).
The declaration of global variables follows analogous rules: they are
either declared static if used in only one file or declared
extern in exactly one header and instantiated in exactly one
file.
The const feature of C is valuable, but easy to mis-use.
Ideally, a function parameter not modified by the function should be
declared as const. This is important in particular for strings
(char*) because the actual arguments are often string literals.
It is perfectly legitimate and safe to use a type char* value
for a type const char* variable (in an assignment, as
initializer, as function argument, or as return value). It is equally
safe to use a type char** value for a type const
char*const* variable, but not for a type const char** variable
since that might cause modification of a quantity supposed to be
constant.
Getting all const qualifiers right can get quite involved but
can almost always be done. There are only a couple notable
exceptions: the X11 headers are full of declarations that ought to use
const but do not; at one time, libfreetype also did not
fully specify const, but this has not been checked recently.
const ¶The GCC compiler warnings “assignment discards qualifiers…” and analogous warnings for “initialization”, “passing arg”, or “return” must be strenuously avoided in our own code. The only exception is when they are caused by X11 declarations or other third party code.
const ¶A type cast, e.g., from const char* to char* does not
solve any problems; depending on warning options, it may only hide
them. Therefore such casts should be avoided whenever possible and
otherwise must be carefully analyzed to make sure that they cannot
cause the modification of quantities supposed to be constant.
The TeX Live sources are subjected to continuous integration testing on Travis-CI (https://travis-ci.org/TeX-Live/texlive-source) via a git-svn mirror of the sources that is pushed to Github (https://github.com/TeX-Live/texlive-source). The git-svn mirror is updated (currently) at 30 minute intervals, and only the last commit pushed is tested on Travis-CI.
The git-svn program (https://git-scm.com/docs/git-svn) is used
to check out the subtree Build/source of the canonical
Subversion repository. The author index file used is not maintained
in either Git or Subversion but can be provided on request.
The initial checkout was done by invoking
git svn --authors-file usermap clone \ svn://user@tug.org/texlive/trunk/Build/source
where the usermap file maps Subversion user names to
name and emails of the authors. Anonymous checkout is also possible:
git svn --authors-file usermap clone \ svn://tug.org/texlive/trunk/Build/source
In the following, we will use admin to refer to a user who has
read/write access to the TeX Live subversion repository, and is also an
administrator of the ‘TeX-Live’ team at Github. The above
initial checkout has been carried out by admin on the server
texlive.info.
On Github, a new git repository named texlive-source was
created by admin within the TeX-Live “organization”
(https://github.com/TeX-Live). The remote was added to the
checkout with git remote add origin
git@github.com:TeX-Live/texlive-source.git.
To automate the update on Github, a new ssh key was generated and
added to the texlive-source repository on Github as deployment
key. Thus, pushes using this key can only go to the
texlive-source repository and not anywhere else.
The usage of git-svn requires a strict discipline to keep a
linear history in the master branch. Since we are aiming at a pure
mirror facility on Github, we have decided to further restrict the
master branch of the texlive-source repository on Github
to changes by admin.
This setup allows other developers to branch off master and
push their branches to the Github repository, but all updates need to
come from the local master (not the one on Github) to
Subversion, back to master on texlive.info, and from
there to Github.
admin has installed a cron job on texlive.info running
every 30 minute which essentially runs git svn rebase and
git push in the master branch of the checkout. The first
command fetches the changes from the Subversion repository and updates
the master branch with them, and the second pushes changes (if
any) to Github.
The source tree of TeX Live contains a top-level file
.travis.yml which controls the automatic testing on
Travis-CI. admin has registered with Travis-CI and allowed
access to the Github’s TeX-Live organization’s
texlive-source repository. The default settings are to build
the last commit of each push. No further action is necessary on
Travis-CI.
If changes have been pushed via the cron job above, Travis-CI will automatically checkout the last pushed commit and try building it.
Given a git checkout of texlive-source:
git pull git tag build-svnNNNN git push --tags
and the result will appear at
https://github.com/TeX-Live/texlive-source/releases.
Releases can also be made manually from that web page (see
tl-update-bindir for hints).
This installer creates a runnable TeX Live installation from various media, including over the network, from local hard disk, a DVD, etc. The installer works on all platforms supported by TeX Live. For information on initially downloading TeX Live, see https://tug.org/texlive/acquire.html.
The basic idea of TeX Live installation is for you to choose one of the top-level schemes, each of which is defined as a different set of collections and packages, where a collection is a set of packages, and a package is what contains actual files. Each package is in exactly one collection, while schemes can contain any combination of packages and collections.
Within the installer, you can choose a scheme, and further customize the
set of collections to install, but not the set of the packages. To work
at the package level, use tlmgr (reference just below) after the
initial installation is complete.
The default is scheme-full, which installs everything, and this is
highly recommended.
Post-installation configuration, package updates, and more, are handled through tlmgr(1), the TeX Live Manager (https://tug.org/texlive/tlmgr.html).
The most up-to-date version of this installer documentation is on the Internet at https://tug.org/texlive/doc/install-tl.html.
For step-by-step instructions, see https://tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html.
For the full documentation of TeX Live, see https://tug.org/texlive/doc.
With no options, install-tl drops you into an interactive menu where
essentially all default settings can be changed. With options, you can
initialize the settings in various ways, or perform the installation
without interaction. Some examples:
install-tl --paper=letterInitialize paper size setting. The only values allowed are letter and
(the default) a4.
install-tl --scheme schemeInitialize the installation scheme; the default is full. For a list
of schemes, see the interactive S menu.
install-tl --no-interactionPerform the installation immediately after parsing options, without entering the interactive menu.
install-tl --profile texlive.profileInstall, without interaction, according to the given TL profile file;
see PROFILES below. To initialize from the profile and then enter the
interactive menu, add --init-from-profile.
Full documentation follows.
As usual, all options can be specified in any order, and with either a
leading - or --. An argument value can be separated from its
option by either a space or =.
The options relating to customization of the installation can also be selected in the interactive installation menus (GUI or text).
If no module is given, starts the Tcl/Tk (see below) GUI installer.
If module is given loads the given installer module. Currently the following modules are supported:
textThe text mode user interface (default on Unix systems, including Macs).
Same as the -no-gui option.
tcl (or "perltk" or "wizard" or "expert" or nothing)The Tcl/Tk user interface (default on Windows). It starts
with a small number of configuration options, roughly equivalent
to what the former wizard option offers, but a button Advanced
takes you to a screen with roughly the same options as the former
perltk interface.
The default GUI requires Tcl/Tk. This was standard on Macs, but has been removed in the latest macOS releases. It’s often already installed on GNU/Linux, or can be easily installed through a distro package manager. For Windows, TeX Live provides a Tcl/Tk runtime.
By default, the Tcl GUI uses the language detection built into Tcl/Tk. If that fails you can select a different language by giving this option with a language code (based on ISO 639-1). Currently supported (but not necessarily completely translated) are: English (en, default), Czech (cs), German (de), French (fr), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR), Russian (ru), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Serbian (sr), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), simplified Chinese (zh_CN), and traditional Chinese (zh_TW).
Specify the package repository to be used as the source of the
installation. In short, this can be a directory name or a url using
http(s), ftp, or scp. The documentation for tlmgr has the details
(https://tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr.html#OPTIONS).
For installation, the default is to pick a mirror automatically, using
https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet; the chosen mirror is
then used for the entire download. You can use the special argument
ctan as an abbreviation for this. (See https://ctan.org for more
about CTAN and its mirrors.)
After installation is complete, you can use that installation as the repository for another installation. If you chose to install less than the full scheme containing all packages, the list of available schemes will be adjusted accordingly.
This option allows you to choose a particular mirror from the current
list of active CTAN mirrors. This option is supported in the text
and gui installer modes, and will also offer to install
from local media if available, or from a repository specified on the
command line. It’s useful when the (default) automatic redirection does
not choose a good host for you.
Normally options not relevant to the current platform are not shown (e.g., when running on Unix, Windows-specific options are omitted). Giving this command line option allows configuring such "foreign" settings.
If you have built your own set of TeX Live binaries (e.g., because
precompiled binaries were not provided by TL for your platform), this
option allows you to specify the path to a directory where the
binaries for the current system are present. The installation will
continue as usual, but at the end all files from path are copied over
to bin/custom/ under your installation directory and this
bin/custom/ directory is what will be added to the path for the
post-install actions. To install multiple custom binary sets, manually
rename custom before doing each.
For more information on custom binaries, see https://tug.org/texlive/custom-bin.html. For general information on building TeX Live, see https://tug.org/texlive/build.html.
Pretend we’re doing a network install. This is for the sole purpose of testing the code to handle broken downloads, via moving package files aside in a tlnet mirror hierarchy.
Print final values of directory variables; for more debugging
information on how they were set, also specify -v.
In the former Perl/Tk GUI modes, this option reported any missing, or more likely untranslated, messages to standard error. Not yet implemented for the Tcl interface. Helpful for translators to see what remains to be done.
Instead of auto-detecting the current platform, use platform.
Binaries for this platform must be present in bin/platform/ and
they must be runnable, or installation will fail. -force-arch is a
synonym.
Display this help and exit. (This help is also on the web at
https://tug.org/texlive/doc/install-tl.html). Sometimes the perldoc
and/or PAGER programs on the system have problems, possibly resulting
in control characters being literally output. This can’t always be
detected, but you can set the NOPERLDOC environment variable and
perldoc will not be used.
This is a quick-and-dirty installation option in case you already have
an rsync or svn checkout of TeX Live. It will use the checkout as-is
and will just do the necessary post-install. Be warned that the file
tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb may be rewritten, that removal has to be done
manually, and that the only realistic way to maintain this installation
is to redo it from time to time. This option is not available via the
installer interfaces. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Similar to -profile (see PROFILES below), but only initializes the installation configuration from profile_file and then starts a normal interactive session. Environment variables are not ignored.
Write both all messages (informational, debugging, warnings) to file, in addition to standard output or standard error.
If this option is not given, the installer will create a log file
in the root of the writable installation tree,
for example, /usr/local/texlive/YYYY/install-tl.log for the YYYY
release.
For the text mode installer only: do not clear the screen when entering a new menu. For debugging.
Quit early on installation failure of a non-core package.
By default, a few core packages are installed first; then, a failed installation of any other (non-core) package is noted, but does not stop the installation. Any such failed packages are retried, once.
If the retry also fails, by default the installer proceeds to completion anyway, with the idea that it was a transient network problem and reinstallation will succeed later. If this option is specified, and the retry fails, the installer aborts.
Do not install the documentation resp. source package files, both for
the immediate installation and for future updates. After installation,
inclusion of the doc/src files can be re-enabled via tlmgr:
tlmgr option docfiles 1 tlmgr option srcfiles 1
If you later find that you want the doc/src files for a package that has
been installed without them, you can get them like this (using the
fontspec package as the example):
tlmgr install --reinstall --with-doc --with-src fontspec
The source files mentioned here are those relating to TeX packages, such
as .dtx files. The sources that are compiled to make the binaries are
available separately: see https://tug.org/texlive/svn/.
Do not perform any installation. This is for debugging the initialization and setup routines without touching the disk.
Do not enter the interactive menu; immediately perform the installation after initialization and option parsing. Also omit the check for a previous installation and asking about importing previous settings.
For network installs, activating this option makes the installer try to
set up a persistent connection using the LWP Perl module. This
opens only one connection between your computer and the server per
session and reuses it, instead of initiating a new download for each
package, which typically yields a significant speed-up.
This option is turned on by default, and the installation program will
fall back to using wget if this is not possible. To disable usage of
LWP and persistent connections, use -no-persistent-downloads.
By default, if a GnuPG gpg binary is found in PATH, downloads are
verified against a cryptographic signature. This option disables such
verification. The full description is in the Crytographic Verification
section of the tlmgr documentation, e.g.,
https://tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr.html#CRYPTOGRAPHIC-VERIFICATION
For Windows only: configure for the current user, not for all users.
a4|letterSet the default paper size for all TeX Live programs, as specified.
The default is a4. The paper size can be set after installation with
the tlmgr paper command.
Install for portable use, e.g., on a USB stick. See the
instopt_portable description below for details.
Print the TeX Live identifier for the detected platform
(hardware/operating system) combination to standard output, and exit.
-print-arch is a synonym.
Load profile_file and do the installation with no user interaction, that is, a batch (unattended) install. Environment variables are ignored. See PROFILES below.
Omit normal informational messages.
Schemes are the highest level of package grouping in TeX Live; the
default is to use the full scheme, which includes everything. This
option overrides that default. The scheme argument value may
optionally have a prefix scheme-. The list of supported scheme names
depends on what your package repository provides; see the interactive
menu list.
Specify the system installation directory; the default is
/usr/local/texlive/YYYY for release YYYY. Specifying this option also
causes the TEXMFLOCAL, TEXMFSYSCONFIG, and TEXMFSYSVAR
directories to be set as subdirectories of dir, so they don’t have to
be set individually.
There is a brief summary of these directories trees at DIRECTORY TREES below; for details on the trees set up by default, and their intended usage, see the main TeX Live documentation at https://tug.org/texlive/doc.
Specify the user installation directory; the default is
~/.texliveYYYY (except on Macs, where there is no leading dot).
Specifying this also causes the TEXMFHOME, TEXMFCONFIG, and
TEXMFVAR directories to be set as subdirectories of dir.
Specify the TEXMFLOCAL directory; the default is
/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local, that is, one level up from the main
installation. This is so locally-installed packages can be easily used
across releases, which is usually desirable. Specifying the -texdir
option changes this, putting TEXMFLOCAL under the main tree. The
-texmflocal option can be used to specify an explicit directory.
Anything installed here must follow the TeX directory structure (TDS),
e.g., TEXMFHOME/tex/latex/mypkg/mypkg.sty. TDS reference:
https://tug.org/tds.
Specify the TEXMFHOME directory; the default is ~/texmf, except on
Macs, where it is ~/Library/texmf. Analogously to TEXMFLOCAL, the
-texuserdir option changes this default.
Also as with TEXMFLOCAL, anything installed here must follow the TDS.
Specify the TEXMFSYSCONFIG and TEXMFSYSVAR system directories.
Specify the TEXMFCONFIG and TEXMFVAR user directories.
The defaults are ~/.texliveYYYY/texmf-{config,var}, except on Macs,
where the leading dot is omitted (~/texliveYYYY/...).
Include verbose debugging messages; repeat for maximum debugging: -v
-v. (Further repeats are accepted but ignored.)
Output version information and exit. If -v is also given, the
versions of the TeX Live modules used are also reported.
A profile file normally contains all the values needed to perform an
installation. After a normal installation has finished, a profile for
that exact installation is written to the file tlpkg/texlive.profile.
In addition, from the text menu one can select P to save the current
setup as a profile at any time. These are small text files; feel free to
peruse and edit them according to your needs.
Such a profile file can be given as the argument to -profile, for
example to redo the exact same installation on a different system.
Alternatively, you can use a custom profile, most easily created by
starting from a generated one and changing values. An empty profile
file will cause the installer to use the defaults.
As mentioned above, the installer only supports selection by scheme and
collections, not individual packages, so packages cannot be specified in
profile files either. Use tlmgr to work at the package level.
Within a profile file, each line consists of
variable [value]
except for comment lines starting with #. The possible variable
names are listed below. Values, when present, are either 0 or 1
for booleans, or strings (which must be specified without any quote
characters). Leading whitespace is ignored.
If the variable selected_scheme is defined and no collection
variables at all are defined, then the collections required by the
specified scheme (which might change over time) are installed, without
explicitly listing them. This eases maintenance of profile files. If any
collections are specified in a profile, though, then the scheme is
ignored and all desired collections must be given explicitly.
For example, a line
selected_scheme scheme-small
along with definitions for the installation directories (given below
under "path options") suffices to install the "small" scheme with all
default options. The schemes are described in the S menu in the
text installer, or equivalent.
In addition to selected_scheme, here are the other variable names
supported in a profile:
collection options (prefix collection-)
Collections are specified with a variable name with the prefix
collection- followed by a collection name; there is no value. For
instance, collection-basic. The collections are described in the
C menu.
Schemes and collections (and packages) are ultimately defined by the
files in the tlpkg/tlpsrc/ source directory.
path options
It is best to define all of these, even though they may not be used in a given installation, so as to avoid unintentionally getting a default value that could cause problems later.
TEXDIR TEXMFLOCAL TEXMFSYSCONFIG TEXMFSYSVAR TEXMFCONFIG TEXMFVAR TEXMFHOME
installer options (prefix instopt_)
instopt_adjustpath (default 0 on Unix, 1 on Windows)Adjust PATH environment variable.
instopt_adjustrepo (default 1)Set remote repository to a multiplexed CTAN mirror after installation;
see -repository above.
instopt_letter (default 0)Set letter size paper as the default, instead of a4.
instopt_portable (default 0)Install for portable use, e.g., on a USB stick, without touching the
host system. Specifically, this forces the user directories
TEXMFHOME, TEXMFCONFIG, TEXMFVAR to be identical to the system
directories TEXMFLOCAL, TEXMFSYSCONFIG, TEXMFSYSVAR,
respectively (regardless of other options and environment variable.)
In addition, on Windows, it disables the desktop integration, path adjustment, and file associations actions usually performed.
instopt_write18_restricted (default 1)Enable \write18 for a restricted set of programs.
tlpdb options (prefix tlpdbopt_)
The definitive list is given in tlpkg/TeXLive/TLConfig.pm, in the hash
%TeXLive::TLConfig::TLPDBOptions, together with explanations. All
items given there except for tlpdbopt_location can be specified.
Here is the current list:
tlpdbopt_autobackup tlpdbopt_backupdir tlpdbopt_create_formats tlpdbopt_desktop_integration tlpdbopt_file_assocs tlpdbopt_generate_updmap tlpdbopt_install_docfiles tlpdbopt_install_srcfiles tlpdbopt_post_code tlpdbopt_sys_bin tlpdbopt_sys_info tlpdbopt_sys_man tlpdbopt_w32_multi_user
platform options (prefix binary_)
For each supported platform in TeX Live (directories under bin/), the
variable binary_PLATFORM can be set with value 1. For example:
binary_x86_64-linux 1
If no binary_ settings are made, the default is whatever the
current machine is running.
In releases before 2017, many profile variables had different
names (not documented here; see the install-tl source). They are
accepted and transformed to the names given above. When a profile is
written, the names above are always used.
For more details on all of the above options, consult the TeX Live installation manual, linked from https://tug.org/texlive/doc.
For ease in scripting and debugging, install-tl looks for the
following environment variables. They are not of interest for normal
user installations.
NOPERLDOCDon’t try to run the --help message through perldoc.
TEXLIVE_DOWNLOADERTL_DOWNLOAD_PROGRAMTL_DOWNLOAD_ARGSThese override the normal choice of a download program; see the tlmgr
documentation, e.g.,
https://tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr.html#ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLES.
TEXLIVE_INSTALL_ENV_NOCHECKOmit the check for environment variables containing the string tex.
People developing TeX-related software are likely to have many such
variables.
TEXLIVE_INSTALL_NO_CONTEXT_CACHEOmit creating the ConTeXt cache. This is useful for redistributors.
TEXLIVE_INSTALL_NO_DISKCHECKIf set to 1, omit free disk space check. By default, if a
POSIX-compliant df program (supporting -Pk) is available, the
installer checks for available disk space in the selected installation
location, and will abort installation if there is insufficient disk
space, plus a margin of 100MB. An equivalent check is made on Windows
(not involving df).
TEXLIVE_INSTALL_NO_RESUMEOmit check for installing on top of a previous installation and then asking about importing previous settings.
TEXLIVE_INSTALL_NO_WELCOMEOmit printing the welcome message after successful installation, e.g., when testing.
TEXLIVE_INSTALL_PAPERSet the default paper size for all relevant programs; must be either
letter or a4. The default is a4.
TEXLIVE_INSTALL_PREFIXTEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFCONFIGTEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFVARTEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFHOMETEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFLOCALTEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFSYSCONFIGTEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFSYSVARSpecify the respective directories. TEXLIVE_INSTALL_PREFIX defaults
to /usr/local/texlive. All the defaults can be seen by running the
installer interactively and then typing D for the directory menu.
The various command line options for specifying directories override these environment variables; since specifying both is usually accidental, a warning is given if the values are different.
There are a plethora of ways to specify the plethora of directory trees used by TeX Live. By far the simplest, and recommended, approach is not to change anything. The defaults suffice for the vast majority of installations.
But, for the sake of explanation, here is a table of the trees and the command line options that change them. The first group of three are system directories, and the second group of three are user directories; the two groups are quite analogous.
+----------------+--------------------------------------+--------------+------------------+ | tree | default | group change | single change | +----------------+--------------------------------------+--------------+------------------+ | TEXMFLOCAL | /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local | --texdir | --texmflocal | | TEXMFSYSVAR | /usr/local/texlive/YYYY/texmf-var | --texdir | --texmfsysvar | | TEXMFSYSCONFIG | /usr/local/texlive/YYYY/texmf-config | --texdir | --texmfsysconfig | +----------------+--------------------------------------+--------------+------------------+ | TEXMFHOME | ~/texmf | --texuserdir | --texmfhome | | TEXMFVAR | ~/.texliveYYYY/texmf-var | --texuserdir | --texmfvar | | TEXMFCONFIG | ~/.texliveYYYY/texmf-config | --texuserdir | --texmfconfig | +----------------+--------------------------------------+--------------+------------------+
In addition, as mentioned in the previous section, each tree has an
environment variable TEXLIVE_INSTALL_tree which overrides the
default; command line and profile settings both override environment
variable settings.
The defaults vary slightly on Macs, as explained above in OPTIONS.
For the user trees, the default value uses ~, and this is left as a
literal ~ in texmf.cnf. That way, each user can have their own
TEXMFHOME, etc., as intended. On the other hand, for the system
trees, if ~ is used during the installation, this is assumed to
simply be a typing shorthand, and the expanded home directory is written
in texmf.cnf, since it doesn’t make sense to have user-specific
system directories.
For more on the directory trees and their intended usage, see the main TeX Live documentation at https://tug.org/texlive/doc.
The install-tl script copies itself into the installed tree.
Usually, it can be run from there, using the installed tree as the
source for another installation. Occasionally, however, there may be
incompatibilities in the code of the new install-tl and the
infrastructure, resulting in (probably) inscrutable Perl errors. The
way forward is to run install-tl out of the installer package
(install-tl-unx.tar.gz or install-tl.zip) instead of the
installation. Feel free to also report the issue; usually the code
can be easily synced up again.
By the way, do not try to use install-tl to adjust options or
installed packages in an existing installed tree. Use tlmgr instead.
This script and its documentation were written for the TeX Live distribution (https://tug.org/texlive) and both are licensed under the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later.
$Id: install-tl 69711 2024-02-05 17:23:27Z karl $
tlmgr manages an existing TeX Live installation, both packages and configuration options. For information on initially downloading and installing TeX Live, see https://tug.org/texlive/acquire.html.
The most up-to-date version of this documentation (updated nightly from
the development sources) is available at
https://tug.org/texlive/tlmgr.html, along with procedures for updating
tlmgr itself and information about test versions.
TeX Live is organized into a few top-level schemes, each of which is specified as a different set of collections and packages, where a collection is a set of packages, and a package is what contains actual files. Schemes typically contain a mix of collections and packages, but each package is included in exactly one collection, no more and no less. A TeX Live installation can be customized and managed at any level.
See https://tug.org/texlive/doc for all the TeX Live documentation available.
After successfully installing TeX Live, here are a few common operations
with tlmgr:
tlmgr option repository ctantlmgr option repository https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnetTell tlmgr to use a nearby CTAN mirror for future updates; useful if
you installed TeX Live from the DVD image and want to have continuing
updates. The two commands are equivalent; ctan is just an alias for
the given url.
Caveat: mirror.ctan.org resolves to many different hosts, and they
are not perfectly synchronized; we recommend updating only daily (at
most), and not more often. You can choose a particular mirror if
problems; the list of all CTAN mirrors with the status of each is at
https://ctan.org/mirrors/mirmon.
tlmgr update --listReport what would be updated without actually updating anything.
tlmgr update --allMake your local TeX installation correspond to what is in the package repository (typically useful when updating from CTAN).
tlmgr info whatDisplay detailed information about a package what, such as the installation status and description, of searches for what in all packages.
tlmgr bug whatDisplay available bug-reporting information for what, a package or file name.
For all the capabilities and details of tlmgr, please read the
following voluminous information.
The following options to tlmgr are global options, not specific to
any action. All options, whether global or action-specific, can be
given anywhere on the command line, and in any order. The first
non-option argument will be the main action. In all cases,
--option and -option are equivalent, and an = is optional
between an option name and its value.
Specify the package repository from which packages should be installed
or updated, either a local directory or network location, as below. This
overridesthe default package repository found in the installation’s TeX
Live Package Database (a.k.a. the TLPDB, which is given entirely in the
file tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb).
This --repository option changes the location only for the current
run; to make a permanent change, use option repository (see the
option action).
As an example, you can choose a particular CTAN mirror with something like this:
-repository http://ctan.example.org/its/ctan/dir/systems/texlive/tlnet
Of course a real hostname and its particular top-level CTAN directory have to be specified. The list of CTAN mirrors is available at https://ctan.org/mirrors/mirmon.
Here’s an example of using a local directory:
-repository /local/TL/repository
For backward compatibility and convenience, --location and --repo
are accepted as aliases for this option.
Locations can be specified as any of the following:
/some/local/dirfile:/some/local/dirEquivalent ways of specifying a local directory.
ctanhttps://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnetPick a CTAN mirror automatically, trying for one that is both nearby and
up-to-date. The chosen mirror is used for the entire download. The bare
ctan is merely an alias for the full url. (See https://ctan.org for
more about CTAN and its mirrors.)
http://server/path/to/tlnetStandard HTTP. If the (default) LWP method is used, persistent
connections are supported. TL can also use curl or wget to do the
downloads, or an arbitrary user-specified program, as described in the
tlmgr documentation
(https://tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr.html#ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLES).
https://server/path/to/tlnetAgain, if the (default) LWP method is used, this supports persistent
connections. Unfortunately, some versions of wget and curl do not
support https, and even when wget supports https, certificates may be
rejected even when the certificate is fine, due to a lack of local
certificate roots. The simplest workaround for this problem is to use
http or ftp.
ftp://server/path/to/tlnetIf the (default) LWP method is used, persistent connections are supported.
user@machine:/path/to/tlnetscp://user@machine/path/to/tlnetssh://user@machine/path/to/tlnetThese forms are equivalent; they all use scp to transfer files. Using
ssh-agent is recommended. (Info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSH,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ssh-agent.)
If the repository is on the network, trailing / characters and/or
trailing /tlpkg and/or /archive components are ignored.
Two notable GUI front-ends for tlmgr, tlshell and tlcockpit,
are started up as separate programs; see their own documentation.
tlmgr itself has a graphical interface as well as the command line
interface. You can give the option to invoke it, --gui, together with
an action to be brought directly into the respective screen of the GUI.
For example, running
tlmgr --gui update
starts you directly at the update screen. If no action is given, the GUI will be started at the main screen. See GUI FOR TLMGR.
However, the native GUI requires Perl/TK, which is no longer included in
TeX Live’s Perl distribution for Windows. You may find tlshell or
tlcockpit easier to work with.
By default, the GUI tries to deduce your language from the environment
(on Windows via the registry, on Unix via LC_MESSAGES). If that fails
you can select a different language by giving this option with a
language code (based on ISO 639-1). Currently supported (but not
necessarily completely translated) are: English (en, default),
Czech (cs), German (de), French (fr), Italian (it),
Japanese (ja), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR), Russian (ru), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Serbian (sr), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), simplified Chinese (zh_CN), and traditional Chinese (zh_TW).
tlshell shares its message catalog with tlmgr.
tlmgr logs the output of all programs invoked (mktexlr, mtxrun, fmtutil,
updmap) to a separate log file, by default
TEXMFSYSVAR/web2c/tlmgr-commands.log. This option allows you to specify a
different file for the log.
In GUI mode, this switch tells tlmgr to report any untranslated (or
missing) messages to standard error. This can help translators to see
what remains to be done.
Instead of the normal output intended for human consumption, write (to standard output) a fixed format more suitable for machine parsing. See the MACHINE-READABLE OUTPUT section below.
Suppress the execution of the execute actions as defined in the tlpsrc files. Documented only for completeness, as this is only useful in debugging.
tlmgr logs all package actions (install, remove, update, failed
updates, failed restores) to a separate log file, by default
TEXMFSYSVAR/web2c/tlmgr.log. This option allows you to specify a
different file for the log.
This option makes tlmgr wait for user input before exiting. Useful on
Windows to avoid disappearing command windows.
For network-based installations, this option (on by default) makes
tlmgr try to set up a persistent connection (using the LWP Perl
module). The idea is to open and reuse only one connection per session
between your computer and the server, instead of initiating a new
download for each package.
If this is not possible, tlmgr will fall back to using wget. To
disable these persistent connections, use --no-persistent-downloads.
Change the pinning file location from TEXMFLOCAL/tlpkg/pinning.txt
(see Pinning below). Documented only for completeness, as this is
only useful in debugging.
Activates user mode for this run of tlmgr; see USER MODE below.
Uses dir for the tree in user mode; see USER MODE below.
Defines the level of verification done: If none is specified, no
verification whatsoever is done. If main is given and a working GnuPG
(gpg) binary is available, all repositories are checked, but only the
main repository is required to be signed. If all is given, then all
repositories need to be signed. See CRYPTOGRAPHIC VERIFICATION below
for details.
The standard options for TeX Live programs are also accepted:
--help/-h/-?, --version, -q (no informational messages), -v
(debugging messages, can be repeated). For the details about these, see
the TeXLive::TLUtils documentation.
The --version option shows version information about the TeX Live
release and about the tlmgr script itself. If -v is also given,
revision number for the loaded TeX Live Perl modules are shown, too.
Display this help information and exit (same as --help, and on the
web at https://tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr.html). Sometimes the
perldoc and/or PAGER programs on the system have problems,
resulting in control characters being literally output. This can’t
always be detected, but you can set the NOPERLDOC environment
variable and perldoc will not be used.
Gives version information (same as --version).
If -v has been given the revisions of the used modules are reported, too.
If the --clean option is not specified, this action makes a backup of
the given packages, or all packages given --all. These backups are
saved to the value of the --backupdir option, if that is an existing
and writable directory. If --backupdir is not given, the backupdir
option setting in the TLPDB is used, if present. If both are missing, no
backups are made. (The installer sets backupdir to
.../tlpkg/backups, under the TL root installation directory, so it is
usually defined; see the option description for more information.)
If the --clean option is specified, backups are pruned (removed)
instead of saved. The optional integer value N may be specified to
set the number of backups that will be retained when cleaning. If N
is not given, the value of the autobackup option is used. If both are
missing, an error is issued. For more details of backup pruning, see
the option action.
Options:
Overrides the backupdir option setting in the TLPDB.
The directory argument is required and must specify an existing,
writable directory where backups are to be placed.
If --clean is not specified, make a backup of all packages in the TeX
Live installation; this will take quite a lot of space and time. If
--clean is specified, all packages are pruned.
Instead of making backups, prune the backup directory of old backups, as
explained above. The optional integer argument N overrides the
autobackup option set in the TLPDB. You must use --all or a list
of packages together with this option, as desired.
Nothing is actually backed up or removed; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
Searches for search-string (prompted for, if not given) as a package name and in package descriptions, as complete words, and in filenames, as any substring, and outputs bug-reporting and other information for the package selected from the results.
The search is equivalent to tlmgr search --word --file search-string.
Thus, search-string is interpreted as a (Perl) regular expression.
Shows the available candidate repositories for package pkg. See MULTIPLE REPOSITORIES below.
Execute one (or all) check(s) of the consistency of the installation.
If no problems are found, there will be no output. (To get a view of
what is being done, run tlmgr -v check.)
Lists those packages which occur as dependencies in an installed collection, but are themselves not installed, and those packages which are not contained in any collection.
If you call tlmgr check collections this test will be carried out
instead since former versions for tlmgr called it that way.
Check that the files referred to by execute directives in the TeX
Live Database are present.
Checks that all files listed in the local TLPDB (texlive.tlpdb) are
actually present, and lists those missing.
List those filenames that are occurring more than one time in the runfiles sections, except for known duplicates.
Checks related to the ls-R files. If you have defined new trees, or
changed the TEXMF or TEXMFDBS variables, it can’t hurt to run
this. It checks that:
Options:
Use the output of svn status instead of listing the files; for
checking the TL development repository. (This is run nightly.)
With only conf, show general configuration information for TeX Live,
including active configuration files, path settings, and more. This is
like running texconfig conf, but works on all supported platforms.
With one of conf texmf, conf tlmgr, or conf updmap, shows all
key/value pairs (i.e., all settings) as saved in ROOT/texmf.cnf, the
user-specific tlmgr configuration file (see below), or the first
found (via kpsewhich) updmap.cfg file, respectively.
If key is given in addition, shows the value of only that key in the respective file. If option --delete is also given, the value in the given configuration file is entirely removed (not just commented out).
If value is given in addition, key is set to value in the respective file. No error checking is done!
The PATH value shown by conf is as used by tlmgr. The
directory in which the tlmgr executable is found is automatically
prepended to the PATH value inherited from the environment.
Here is a practical example of changing configuration values. If the
execution of (some or all) system commands via \write18 was left
enabled during installation, you can disable it afterwards:
tlmgr conf texmf shell_escape 0
The subcommand auxtrees allows adding and removing arbitrary
additional texmf trees, completely under user control. auxtrees show
shows the list of additional trees, auxtrees add tree adds a tree
to the list, and auxtrees remove tree removes a tree from the list
(if present). The trees should not contain an ls-R file (or files
will not be found if the ls-R becomes stale). This works by
manipulating the Kpathsea variable TEXMFAUXTREES, in (by default)
ROOT/texmf.cnf. Example:
tlmgr conf auxtrees add /quick/test/tree tlmgr conf auxtrees remove /quick/test/tree
In all cases the configuration file can be explicitly specified via the
option --conffile file, e.g., if you don’t want to change the
system-wide configuration.
Warning: The general facility for changing configuration values is here, but tinkering with settings in this way is strongly discouraged. Again, no error checking on either keys or values is done, so any sort of breakage is possible.
Dump complete local or remote TLPDB to standard output, as-is. The
output is analogous to the --machine-readable output; see
MACHINE-READABLE OUTPUT section.
Options:
Dump the local TLPDB.
Dump the remote TLPDB.
Instead of dumping the actual content, the database is dumped as
JSON. For the format of JSON output see tlpkg/doc/JSON-formats.txt,
format definition TLPDB.
Exactly one of --local and --remote must be given.
In either case, the first line of the output specifies the repository location, in this format:
"location-url" "\t" location
where location-url is the literal field name, followed by a tab, and
location is the file or url to the repository.
Line endings may be either LF or CRLF depending on the current platform.
The generate action overwrites any manual changes made in the
respective files: it recreates them from scratch based on the
information of the installed packages, plus local adaptions.
The TeX Live installer and tlmgr routinely call generate for
all of these files.
For managing your own fonts, please read the updmap --help
information and/or https://tug.org/fonts/fontinstall.html.
For managing your own formats, please read the fmtutil --help
information.
In more detail: generate remakes any of the configuration files
language.dat, language.def, and language.dat.lua
from the information present in the local TLPDB, plus
locally-maintained files.
The locally-maintained files are language-local.dat,
language-local.def, or language-local.dat.lua,
searched for in TEXMFLOCAL in the respective
directories. If local additions are present, the final file is made by
starting with the main file, omitting any entries that the local file
specifies to be disabled, and finally appending the local file.
(Historical note: The formerly supported updmap-local.cfg and
fmtutil-local.cnf are no longer read, since updmap and fmtutil
now reads and supports multiple configuration files. Thus,
local additions can and should be put into an updmap.cfg of fmtutil.cnf
file in TEXMFLOCAL. The generate updmap and generate fmtutil actions
no longer exist.)
Local files specify entries to be disabled with a comment line, namely one of these:
%!NAME --!NAME
where language.dat and language.def use %,
and language.dat.lua use --. In all cases, the name is
the respective format name or hyphenation pattern identifier.
Examples:
%!german --!usenglishmax
(Of course, you’re not likely to actually want to disable those particular items. They’re just examples.)
After such a disabling line, the local file can include another entry for the same item, if a different definition is desired. In general, except for the special disabling lines, the local files follow the same syntax as the master files.
The form generate language recreates all three files language.dat,
language.def, and language.dat.lua, while the forms with an
extension recreates only that given language file.
Options:
specifies the output file (defaults to the respective location in
TEXMFSYSVAR). If --dest is given to generate language, it
serves as a basename onto which .dat will be appended for the name of
the language.dat output file, .def will be appended to the value
for the name of the language.def output file, and .dat.lua to the
name of the language.dat.lua file. (This is just to avoid
overwriting; if you want a specific name for each output file, we
recommend invoking tlmgr twice.)
specifies the (optional) local additions (defaults to the respective
location in TEXMFLOCAL).
tells tlmgr to run necessary programs after config files have been
regenerated. These are:
fmtutil-sys --all after generate fmtutil,
fmtutil-sys --byhyphen .../language.dat after generate language.dat,
and
fmtutil-sys --byhyphen .../language.def after generate language.def.
These subsequent calls cause the newly-generated files to actually take effect. This is not done by default since those calls are lengthy processes and one might want to made several related changes in succession before invoking these programs.
The respective locations are as follows:
tex/generic/config/language.dat (and language-local.dat) tex/generic/config/language.def (and language-local.def) tex/generic/config/language.dat.lua (and language-local.dat.lua)
With no argument, lists all packages available at the package
repository, prefixing those already installed with i.
With the single word collections or schemes as the argument, lists
the request type instead of all packages.
With any other arguments, display information about pkg: the name, category, short and long description, sizes, installation status, and TeX Live revision number. If pkg is not locally installed, searches in the remote installation source.
For normal packages (not collections or schemes), the sizes of the four groups of files (run/src/doc/bin files) are shown separately. For collections, the cumulative size is shown, including all directly-dependent packages (but not dependent collections). For schemes, the cumulative size is also shown, including all directly-dependent collections and packages.
If pkg is not found locally or remotely, the search action is used and lists matching packages and files.
It also displays information taken from the TeX Catalogue, namely the
package version, date, and license. Consider these, especially the
package version, as approximations only, due to timing skew of the
updates of the different pieces. By contrast, the revision value
comes directly from TL and is reliable.
The former actions show and list are merged into this action,
but are still supported for backward compatibility.
Options:
If the option --list is given with a package, the list of contained
files is also shown, including those for platform-specific dependencies.
When given with schemes and collections, --list outputs their
dependencies in a similar way.
If this option is given, the installation source will not be used; only locally installed packages, collections, or schemes are listed.
Only list packages from the remote repository. Useful when checking what
is available in a remote repository using
tlmgr --repo ... --only-remote info. Note that
--only-installed and --only-remote cannot both be specified.
item1,item2,...If the option --data is given, its argument must be a comma or colon
separated list of field names from: name, category, localrev,
remoterev, shortdesc, longdesc, installed, size,
relocatable, depends, cat-version, cat-date, cat-license,
plus various cat-contact-* fields (see below).
The cat-* fields all come from the TeX Catalogue
(https://ctan.org/pkg/catalogue). For each, there are two more
variants with prefix l and r, e.g., lcat-version and
rcat-version, which indicate the local and remote information,
respectively. The variants without l and r show the most current
one, which is normally the remote value.
The requested packages’ information is listed in CSV format, one package
per line, and the column information is given by the itemN. The
depends column contains the names of all the dependencies separated
by : characters.
At this writing, the cat-contact-* fields include: home,
repository, support, bugs, announce, development. Each
may be empty or a url value. A brief description is on the CTAN upload
page for new packages: https://ctan.org/upload.
In case --json is specified, the output is a JSON encoded array where
each array element is the JSON representation of a single TLPOBJ but
with additional information. For details see
tlpkg/doc/JSON-formats.txt, format definition: TLPOBJINFO. If both
--json and --data are given, --json takes precedence.
Sets up a texmf tree for so-called user mode management, either the
default user tree (TEXMFHOME), or one specified on the command line
with --usertree. See USER MODE below.
Install each pkg given on the command line, if it is not already
installed. It does not touch existing packages; see the update
action for how to get the latest version of a package.
By default this also installs all packages on which the given pkgs are dependent. Options:
Nothing is actually installed; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
Instead of fetching a package from the installation repository, use the package files given on the command line. These files must be standard TeX Live package files (with contained tlpobj file).
If updates to tlmgr itself (or other parts of the basic
infrastructure) are present, tlmgr will bail out and not perform the
installation unless this option is given. Not recommended.
Do not install dependencies. (By default, installing a package ensures that all dependencies of this package are fulfilled.)
Normally, when you install a package which ships binary files the
respective binary package will also be installed. That is, for a
package foo, the package foo.i386-linux will also be installed on
an i386-linux system. This option suppresses this behavior, and also
implies --no-depends. Don’t use it unless you are sure of what you
are doing.
Reinstall a package (including dependencies for collections) even if it already seems to be installed (i.e, is present in the TLPDB). This is useful to recover from accidental removal of files in the hierarchy.
When re-installing, only dependencies on normal packages are followed (i.e., not those of category Scheme or Collection).
While not recommended, the install-tl program provides an option to
omit installation of all documentation and/or source files. (By
default, everything is installed.) After such an installation, you may
find that you want the documentation or source files for a given package
after all. You can get them by using these options in conjunction with
--reinstall, as in (using the fontspec package as the example):
tlmgr install --reinstall --with-doc --with-src fontspec
This action does not automatically add new symlinks in system
directories; you need to run tlmgr path add (path) yourself if
you are using this feature and want new symlinks added.
The action key allows listing, adding and removing additional GPG
keys to the set of trusted keys, that is, those that are used to verify
the TeX Live databases.
With the list argument, key lists all keys.
The add argument requires another argument, either a filename or
- for stdin, from which the key is added. The key is added to the
local keyring GNUPGHOME/repository-keys.gpg, which is normally
tlpkg/gpg/repository-keys.gpg.
The remove argument requires a key id and removes the requested id
from the local keyring.
The first form, show, shows the global TeX Live settings currently
saved in the TLPDB with a short description and the key used for
changing it in parentheses.
The second form, showall, is similar, but also shows options which
can be defined but are not currently set to any value (help is a
synonym).
Both show... forms take an option --json, which dumps the option
information in JSON format. In this case, both forms dump the same
data. For the format of the JSON output see
tlpkg/doc/JSON-formats.txt, format definition TLOPTION.
In the third form, with key, if value is not given, the setting for key is displayed. If value is present, key is set to value.
Possible values for key are (run tlmgr option showall for
the definitive list):
repository (default package repository), formats (generate formats at installation or update time), postcode (run postinst code blobs) docfiles (install documentation files), srcfiles (install source files), backupdir (default directory for backups), autobackup (number of backups to keep). sys_bin (directory to which executables are linked by the path action) sys_man (directory to which man pages are linked by the path action) sys_info (directory to which Info files are linked by the path action) desktop_integration (Windows-only: create Start menu shortcuts) fileassocs (Windows-only: change file associations) multiuser (Windows-only: install for all users)
One common use of option is to permanently change the installation to
get further updates from the Internet, after originally installing from
DVD. To do this, you can run
tlmgr option repository https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet
The install-tl documentation has more information about the possible
values for repository. (For backward compatibility, location can
be used as a synonym for repository.)
If formats is set (this is the default), then formats are regenerated
when either the engine or the format files have changed. Disable this
only when you know how and want to regenerate formats yourself whenever
needed (which is often, in practice).
The postcode option controls execution of per-package
postinstallation action code. It is set by default, and again disabling
is not likely to be of interest except to developers doing debugging.
The docfiles and srcfiles options control the installation of
their respective file groups (documentation, sources; grouping is
approximate) per package. By default both are enabled (1). Either or
both can be disabled (set to 0) if disk space is limited or for minimal
testing installations, etc. When disabled, the respective files are not
downloaded at all.
The options autobackup and backupdir determine the defaults for
the actions update, backup and restore. These three actions
need a directory in which to read or write the backups. If
--backupdir is not specified on the command line, the backupdir
option value is used (if set). The TL installer sets backupdir to
.../tlpkg/backups, under the TL root installation directory.
The autobackup option (de)activates automatic generation of backups.
Its value is an integer. If the autobackup value is -1, no
backups are removed. If autobackup is 0 or more, it specifies the
number of backups to keep. Thus, backups are disabled if the value is
0. In the --clean mode of the backup action this option also
specifies the number to be kept. The default value is 1, so that
backups are made, but only one backup is kept.
To setup autobackup to -1 on the command line, use:
tlmgr option -- autobackup -1
The -- avoids having the -1 treated as an option. (The --
stops parsing for options at the point where it appears; this is a
general feature across most Unix programs.)
The sys_bin, sys_man, and sys_info options are used on Unix
systems to control the generation of links for executables, Info files
and man pages. See the path action for details.
The last three options affect behavior on Windows installations. If
desktop_integration is set, then some packages will install items in
a sub-folder of the Start menu for tlmgr gui, documentation, etc. If
fileassocs is set, Windows file associations are made (see also the
postaction action). Finally, if multiuser is set, then adaptions
to the registry and the menus are done for all users on the system
instead of only the current user. All three options are on by default.
With no arguments (tlmgr paper), shows the default paper size setting
for all known programs.
With one argument (e.g., tlmgr paper a4), sets the default for all
known programs to that paper size.
With a program given as the first argument and no paper size specified
(e.g., tlmgr dvips paper), shows the default paper size for that
program.
With a program given as the first argument and a paper size as the last
argument (e.g., tlmgr dvips paper a4), set the default for that
program to that paper size.
With a program given as the first argument and --list given as the
last argument (e.g., tlmgr dvips paper --list), shows all valid paper
sizes for that program. The first size shown is the default.
If --json is specified without other options, the paper setup is
dumped in JSON format. For the format of JSON output see
tlpkg/doc/JSON-formats.txt, format definition TLPAPER.
Incidentally, this syntax of having a specific program name before the
paper keyword is unusual. It is inherited from the longstanding
texconfig script, which supports other configuration settings for
some programs, notably dvips. tlmgr does not support those extra
settings.
On Unix, adds or removes symlinks for executables, man pages, and info pages in the system directories specified by the respective options (see the option description above). Does not change any initialization files, either system or personal. Furthermore, any executables added or removed by future updates are not taken care of automatically; this command must be rerun as needed.
On Windows, the registry part where the binary directory is added or removed is determined in the following way:
If the user has admin rights, and the option --windowsmode is not given,
the setting w32_multi_user determines the location (i.e., if it is
on then the system path, otherwise the user path is changed).
If the user has admin rights, and the option --windowsmode is given, this
option determines the path to be adjusted.
If the user does not have admin rights, and the option --windowsmode
is not given, and the setting w32_multi_user is off, the user path
is changed, while if the setting w32_multi_user is on, a warning is
issued that the caller does not have enough privileges.
If the user does not have admin rights, and the option --windowsmode
is given, it must be user and the user path will be adjusted. If a
user without admin rights uses the option --windowsmode admin a warning
is issued that the caller does not have enough privileges.
The pinning action manages the pinning file, see Pinning below.
pinning showShows the current pinning data.
pinning add repo pkgglob...Pins the packages matching the pkgglob(s) to the repository repo.
pinning remove repo pkgglob...Any packages recorded in the pinning file matching the <pkgglob>s for the given repository repo are removed.
pinning remove repo --allRemove all pinning data for repository repo.
platform list lists the TeX Live names of all the platforms
(a.k.a. architectures), (i386-linux, ...) available at the package
repository.
platform add platform... adds the executables for each given platform
platform to the installation from the repository.
platform remove platform... removes the executables for each given
platform platform from the installation, but keeps the currently
running platform in any case.
platform set platform switches TeX Live to always use the given
platform instead of auto detection.
platform set auto switches TeX Live to auto detection mode for platform.
Platform detection is needed to select the proper xz and
wget binaries that are shipped with TeX Live.
arch is a synonym for platform.
Options:
Carry out the postaction shortcut, fileassoc, or script given
as the second required argument in install or remove mode (which is the
first required argument), for either the packages given on the command
line, or for all if --all is given.
Options:
If the option --windowsmode is given the value user, all actions will
only be carried out in the user-accessible parts of the
registry/filesystem, while the value admin selects the system-wide
parts of the registry for the file associations. If you do not have
enough permissions, using --windowsmode=admin will not succeed.
--fileassocmode specifies the action for file associations. If it is
set to 1 (the default), only new associations are added; if it is set to
2, all associations are set to the TeX Live programs. (See also
option fileassocs.)
Carry out the postactions for all packages
Print the TeX Live identifier for the detected platform
(hardware/operating system) combination to standard output, and exit.
--print-arch is a synonym.
Print the TeX Live platform identifier, TL platform long name, and original output from guess.
Remove each pkg specified. Removing a collection removes all package
dependencies (unless --no-depends is specified), but not any
collection dependencies of that collection. However, when removing a
package, dependencies are never removed. Options:
Uninstalls all of TeX Live, asking for confirmation unless --force is
also specified.
These options behave just as with the update action (q.v.), except they apply to making backups of packages before they are removed. The default is to make such a backup, that is, to save a copy of packages before removal.
The restore action explains how to restore from a backup.
Do not remove dependent packages.
See above under install (and beware).
By default, removal of a package or collection that is a dependency of another collection or scheme is not allowed. With this option, the package will be removed unconditionally. Use with care.
A package that has been removed using the --force option because it
is still listed in an installed collection or scheme will not be
updated, and will be mentioned as forcibly removed in the output of
tlmgr update --list.
Nothing is actually removed; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
Except with --all, this remove action does not automatically
remove symlinks to executables from system directories; you need to run
tlmgr path remove (path) yourself if you remove an individual
package with a symlink in a system directory.
This action manages the list of repositories. See (MULTIPLE_REPOSITORIES) below for detailed explanations.
The first form, repository list, lists all configured repositories
and the respective tags if set. If a path, url, or tag is given after
the list keyword, it is interpreted as the source from which to
initialize a TL database and lists the contained packages. This can also
be an otherwise-unused repository, either local or remote. If the option
--with-platforms is specified in addition, for each package the
available platforms (if any) are also listed.
The form repository add adds a repository (optionally attaching a
tag) to the list of repositories, while repository remove removes a
repository, either by full path/url, or by tag.
The form repository set sets the list of available repositories to
the items given on the command line, overwriting previous settings.
The form repository status reports the verification status of the
loaded repositories with the format of one repository per line
with fields separated by a single space:
= the url;
= iff machine-readable output is specified, the verification code (a number);
= a textual description of the verification status, as the last field extending to the end of line.
That is, in normal (not machine-readable) output, the third field (numeric verification status) is not present.
In all cases, one of the repositories must be tagged as main;
otherwise, all operations will fail!
Restore a package from a previously-made backup.
If --all is given, try to restore the latest revision of all
package backups found in the backup directory.
Otherwise, if neither pkg nor rev are given, list the available backup revisions for all packages. With pkg given but no rev, list all available backup revisions of pkg.
When listing available packages, tlmgr shows the revision, and in
parenthesis the creation time if available (in format yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm).
If (and only if) both pkg and a valid revision number rev are specified, try to restore the package from the specified backup.
Options:
Try to restore the latest revision of all package backups found in the backup directory. Additional non-option arguments (like pkg) are not allowed.
Specify the directory where the backups are to be found. If not given it will be taken from the configuration setting in the TLPDB.
Nothing is actually restored; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
Don’t ask questions.
When listing backups, the option --json turn on JSON output.
The format is an array of JSON objects (name, rev, date).
For details see tlpkg/doc/JSON-formats.txt, format definition: TLBACKUPS.
If both --json and --data are given, --json takes precedence.
By default, search the names, short descriptions, and long descriptions of all locally installed packages for the argument what, interpreted as a (Perl) regular expression.
Options:
List all filenames containing what.
Search everything: package names, descriptions and filenames.
Search the TeX Live Database of the installation medium, instead of the local installation.
Restrict the search of package names and descriptions (but not
filenames) to match only full words. For example, searching for
table with this option will not output packages containing the word
tables (unless they also contain the word table on its own).
Starts an interactive mode, where tlmgr prompts for commands. This can
be used directly, or for scripting. The first line of output is
protocol n, where n is an unsigned number identifying the
protocol version (currently 1).
In general, tlmgr actions that can be given on the command line
translate to commands in this shell mode. For example, you can say
update --list to see what would be updated. The TLPDB is loaded the
first time it is needed (not at the beginning), and used for the rest of
the session.
Besides these actions, a few commands are specific to shell mode:
Print protocol n, the current protocol version.
Print pointers to this documentation.
Print tlmgr version information.
Exit.
Restart tlmgr shell with the original command line; most useful when
developing tlmgr.
Explicitly load the local or remote, respectively, TLPDB.
Save the local TLPDB, presumably after other operations have changed it.
Get the value of var, or set it to val. Possible var names:
debug-translation, machine-readable, no-execute-actions,
require-verification, verify-downloads, repository, and
prompt. All except repository and prompt are booleans, taking
values 0 and 1, and behave like the corresponding command line option.
The repository variable takes a string, and sets the remote
repository location. The prompt variable takes a string, and sets the
current default prompt.
If var or then val is not specified, it is prompted for.
Updates the packages given as arguments to the latest version available
at the installation source. Either --all or at least one pkg name
must be specified. Options:
Update all installed packages except for tlmgr itself. If updates to
tlmgr itself are present, this gives an error, unless also the option
--force or --self is given. (See below.)
In addition to updating the installed packages, during the update of a collection the local installation is (by default) synchronized to the status of the collection on the server, for both additions and removals.
This means that if a package has been removed on the server (and thus
has also been removed from the respective collection), tlmgr will
remove the package in the local installation. This is called
“auto-remove” and is announced as such when using the option
--list. This auto-removal can be suppressed using the option
--no-auto-remove (not recommended, see option description).
Analogously, if a package has been added to a collection on the server
that is also installed locally, it will be added to the local
installation. This is called “auto-install” and is announced as such
when using the option --list. This auto-installation can be
suppressed using the option --no-auto-install (also not recommended).
An exception to the collection dependency checks (including the
auto-installation of packages just mentioned) are those that have been
“forcibly removed” by you, that is, you called tlmgr remove --force
on them. (See the remove action documentation.) To reinstall any
such forcibly removed packages use --reinstall-forcibly-removed.
To reiterate: automatic removals and additions are entirely determined
by comparison of collections. Thus, if you manually install an
individual package foo which is later removed from the server,
tlmgr will not notice and will not remove it locally. (It has to be
this way, without major rearchitecture work, because the tlpdb does not
record the repository from which packages come from.)
If you want to exclude some packages from the current update run (e.g.,
due to a slow link), see the --exclude option below.
Update tlmgr itself (that is, the infrastructure packages) if updates
to it are present. On Windows this includes updates to the private Perl
interpreter shipped inside TeX Live.
If this option is given together with either --all or a list of
packages, then tlmgr will be updated first and, if this update
succeeds, the new version will be restarted to complete the rest of the
updates.
In short:
tlmgr update --self # update infrastructure only
tlmgr update --self --all # update infrastructure and all packages
tlmgr update --force --all # update all packages but *not* infrastructure
# ... this last at your own risk, not recommended!
Nothing is actually installed; instead, the actions to be performed are
written to the terminal. This is a more detailed report than --list.
Concisely list the packages which would be updated, newly installed, or
removed, without actually changing anything.
If --all is also given, all available updates are listed.
If --self is given, but not --all, only updates to the
critical packages (tlmgr, texlive infrastructure, perl on Windows, etc.)
are listed.
If neither --all nor --self is given, and in addition no pkg is
given, then --all is assumed (thus, tlmgr update --list is the
same as tlmgr update --list --all).
If neither --all nor --self is given, but specific package names are
given, those packages are checked for updates.
Exclude pkg from the update process. If this option is given more than once, its arguments accumulate.
An argument pkg excludes both the package pkg itself and all its related platform-specific packages pkg.ARCH. For example,
tlmgr update --all --exclude a2ping
will not update a2ping, a2ping.i386-linux, or
any other a2ping.ARCH package.
If this option specifies a package that would otherwise be a candidate
for auto-installation, auto-removal, or reinstallation of a forcibly
removed package, tlmgr quits with an error message. Excludes are not
supported in these circumstances.
This option can also be set permanently in the tlmgr config file with
the key update-exclude.
By default, tlmgr tries to remove packages in an existing collection
which have disappeared on the server, as described above under --all.
This option prevents such removals, either for all packages (with
--all), or for just the given pkg names. This can lead to an
inconsistent TeX installation, since packages are not infrequently
renamed or replaced by their authors. Therefore this is not recommended.
Under normal circumstances tlmgr will install packages which are new
on the server, as described above under --all. This option prevents
any such automatic installation, either for all packages (with
--all), or the given pkg names.
Furthermore, after the tlmgr run using this has finished, the
packages that would have been auto-installed will be considered as
forcibly removed. So, if foobar is the only new package on the
server, then
tlmgr update --all --no-auto-install
is equivalent to
tlmgr update --all tlmgr remove --force foobar
Again, since packages are sometimes renamed or replaced, using this option is not recommended.
Under normal circumstances tlmgr will not install packages that have
been forcibly removed by the user; that is, removed with remove
--force, or whose installation was prohibited by --no-auto-install
during an earlier update.
This option makes tlmgr ignore the forcible removals and re-install
all such packages. This can be used to completely synchronize an
installation with the server’s idea of what is available:
tlmgr update --reinstall-forcibly-removed --all
These two options control the creation of backups of packages before
updating; that is, backing up packages as currently installed. If
neither option is given, no backup will made. If --backupdir is
given and specifies a writable directory then a backup will be made in
that location. If only --backup is given, then a backup will be made
to the directory previously set via the option action (see
below). If both are given then a backup will be made to the specified
directory.
You can also set options via the option action to automatically make backups for all packages, and/or keep only a certain number of backups.
tlmgr always makes a temporary backup when updating packages, in case
of download or other failure during an update. In contrast, the purpose
of this --backup option is to save a persistent backup in case the
actual content of the update causes problems, e.g., introduces an TeX
incompatibility.
The restore action explains how to restore from a backup.
If you call for updating a package normally all depending packages will also be checked for updates and updated if necessary. This switch suppresses this behavior.
See above under install (and beware).
Force update of normal packages, without updating tlmgr itself
(unless the --self option is also given). Not recommended.
Also, update --list is still performed regardless of this option.
If the package on the server is older than the package already installed
(e.g., if the selected mirror is out of date), tlmgr does not
downgrade. Also, packages for uninstalled platforms are not installed.
tlmgr saves one copy of the main texlive.tlpdb file used for an
update with a suffix representing the repository url, as in
tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb.main.long-hash-string. Thus, even when many
mirrors are used, only one main tlpdb backup is kept. For non-main
repositories, which do not generally have (m)any mirrors, no pruning of
backups is done.
This action does not automatically add or remove new symlinks in system
directories; you need to run tlmgr path yourself if you are using
this feature and want new symlinks added.
tlmgr reads two configuration files: one is system-wide, in
TEXMFSYSCONFIG/tlmgr/config, and the other is user-specific, in
TEXMFCONFIG/tlmgr/config. The user-specific one is the default for
the conf tlmgr action. (Run kpsewhich
-var-value=TEXMFSYSCONFIG or ... TEXMFCONFIG ... to see the actual
directory names.)
A few defaults corresponding to command-line options can be set in these configuration files. In addition, the system-wide file can contain a directive to restrict the allowed actions.
In these config files, empty lines and lines starting with # are ignored. All other lines must look like:
key = value
where the spaces are optional but the = is required.
The allowed keys are:
auto-remove = 0 or 1 (default 1), same as command-line option.gui-expertmode = 0 or 1 (default 1). This switches between the full GUI and a simplified GUI with only the most common settings.gui-lang = llcode, with a language code value as with the command-line option.no-checksums = 0 or 1 (default 0, see below).persistent-downloads = 0 or 1 (default 1), same as command-line option.require-verification = 0 or 1 (default 0), same as command-line option.tkfontscale = floating-point number (default 1.0); scaling factor for fonts in the Tk-based frontends.update-exclude = comma-separated list of packages (no spaces allowed). Same as the command line option --exclude for the update action.verify-downloads = 0 or 1 (default 1), same as command-line option.The system-wide config file can contain one additional key:
allowed-actions = action1[,action2,...] The value is a comma-separated list (no spaces) of tlmgr actions which are allowed to be executed when tlmgr is invoked in system mode (that is, without --usermode). This allows distributors to include tlmgr in their packaging, but allow only a restricted set of actions that do not interfere with their distro package manager. For native TeX Live installations, it doesn’t make sense to set this.Finally, the no-checksums key needs more explanation. By default,
package checksums computed and stored on the server (in the TLPDB) are
compared to checksums computed locally after downloading.
no-checksums disables this process. The checksum algorithm is
SHA-512. Your system must have one of (looked for in this order) the
Perl Digest::SHA module, the openssl program
(https://openssl.org), the sha512sum program (from GNU Coreutils,
https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils), or finally the shasum
program (just to support old Macs). If none of these are available, a
warning is issued and tlmgr proceeds without checking checksums.
no-checksums avoids the warning. (Incidentally, other SHA
implementations, such as the pure Perl and pure Lua modules, are much
too slow to be usable in our context.)
tlmgr and install-tl perform cryptographic verification if
possible. If verification is performed and successful, the programs
report (verified) after loading the TLPDB; otherwise, they report
(not verified). But either way, by default the installation and/or
updates proceed normally.
If a program named gpg is available (that is, found in PATH), by
default cryptographic signatures will be checked: we require the main
repository be signed, but not any additional repositories. If gpg is
not available, by default signatures are not checked and no verification
is carried out, but tlmgr still proceeds normally.
The behavior of the verification can be controlled by the command line
and config file option verify-repo which takes one of the following
values: none, main, or all. With none, no verification
whatsoever is attempted. With main (the default) verification is
required only for the main repository, and only if gpg is available;
though attempted for all, missing signatures of subsidiary repositories
will not result in an error. Finally, in the case of all, gpg
must be available and all repositories need to be signed.
In all cases, if a signature is checked and fails to verify, an error is raised.
Cryptographic verification requires checksum checking (described just
above) to succeed, and a working GnuPG (gpg) program (see below for
search method). Then, unless cryptographic verification has been
disabled, a signature file (texlive.tlpdb.*.asc) of the checksum file
is downloaded and the signature verified. The signature is created by
the TeX Live Distribution GPG key 0x0D5E5D9106BAB6BC, which in turn is
signed by Karl Berry’s key 0x0716748A30D155AD and
Norbert Preining’s key 0x6CACA448860CDC13. All
of these keys are obtainable from the standard key servers.
Additional trusted keys can be added using the key action.
The executable used for GnuPG is searched as follows: If the environment
variable TL_GNUPG is set, it is tested and used; otherwise gpg is
checked; finally gpg2 is checked.
Further adaptation of the gpg invocation can be made using the two
environment variables TL_GNUPGHOME, which is passed to gpg as the
value for --homedir, and TL_GNUPGARGS, which replaces the default
options --no-secmem-warning --no-permission-warning.
tlmgr provides a restricted way, called “user mode”, to manage
arbitrary texmf trees in the same way as the main installation. For
example, this allows people without write permissions on the
installation location to update/install packages into a tree of their
own.
tlmgr is switched into user mode with the command line option
--usermode. It does not switch automatically, nor is there any
configuration file setting for it. Thus, this option has to be
explicitly given every time user mode is to be activated.
This mode of tlmgr works on a user tree, by default the value of the
TEXMFHOME variable. This can be overridden with the command line
option --usertree. In the following when we speak of the user tree
we mean either TEXMFHOME or the one given on the command line.
Not all actions are allowed in user mode; tlmgr will warn you and not
carry out any problematic actions. Currently not supported (and
probably will never be) is the platform action. The gui action is
currently not supported, but may be in a future release.
Some tlmgr actions don’t need any write permissions and thus work the
same in user mode and normal mode. Currently these are: check,
help, list, print-platform, print-platform-info, search,
show, version.
On the other hand, most of the actions dealing with package management
do need write permissions, and thus behave differently in user mode, as
described below: install, update, remove, option, paper,
generate, backup, restore, uninstall, symlinks.
Before using tlmgr in user mode, you have to set up the user tree
with the init-usertree action. This creates usertree/web2c and
usertree/tlpkg/tlpobj, and a minimal
usertree/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb. At that point, you can tell
tlmgr to do the (supported) actions by adding the --usermode
command line option.
In user mode the file usertree/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb contains only
the packages that have been installed into the user tree using tlmgr,
plus additional options from the “virtual” package
00texlive.installation (similar to the main installation’s
texlive.tlpdb).
All actions on packages in user mode can only be carried out on packages
that are known as relocatable. This excludes all packages containing
executables and a few other core packages. Of the 2500 or so packages
currently in TeX Live the vast majority are relocatable and can be
installed into a user tree.
Description of changes of actions in user mode:
In user mode, the install action checks that the package and all
dependencies are all either relocated or already installed in the system
installation. If this is the case, it unpacks all containers to be
installed into the user tree (to repeat, that’s either TEXMFHOME or
the value of --usertree) and add the respective packages to the user
tree’s texlive.tlpdb (creating it if need be).
Currently installing a collection in user mode installs all dependent
packages, but in contrast to normal mode, does not install dependent
collections. For example, in normal mode tlmgr install
collection-context would install collection-basic and other
collections, while in user mode, only the packages mentioned in
collection-context are installed.
If a package shipping map files is installed in user mode, a backup of
the user’s updmap.cfg in USERTREE/web2c/ is made, and then this file
regenerated from the list of installed packages.
In user mode, these actions check that all packages to be acted on are installed in the user tree before proceeding; otherwise, they behave just as in normal mode.
In user mode, these actions operate only on the user tree’s
configuration files and/or texlive.tlpdb.
In user mode, tlmgr.log and <tlmgr-commands.log> are written in the
TEXMFVAR/web2c/ directlry instead of TEXMFSYSVAR/web2c/.
The main TeX Live repository contains a vast array of packages. Nevertheless, additional local repositories can be useful to provide locally-installed resources, such as proprietary fonts and house styles. Also, alternative package repositories distribute packages that cannot or should not be included in TeX Live, for whatever reason.
The simplest and most reliable method is to temporarily set the
installation source to any repository (with the -repository or
option repository command line options), and perform your operations.
When you are using multiple repositories over a sustained length of
time, however, explicitly switching between them becomes inconvenient.
Thus, it’s possible to tell tlmgr about additional repositories you
want to use. The basic command is tlmgr repository add. The rest of
this section explains further.
When using multiple repositories, one of them has to be set as the main repository, which distributes most of the installed packages. When you switch from a single repository installation to a multiple repository installation, the previous sole repository will be set as the main repository.
By default, even if multiple repositories are configured, packages are still only installed from the main repository. Thus, simply adding a second repository does not actually enable installation of anything from there. You also have to specify which packages should be taken from the new repository, by specifying so-called “pinning” rules, described next.
When a package foo is pinned to a repository, a package foo in any
other repository, even if it has a higher revision number, will not be
considered an installable candidate.
As mentioned above, by default everything is pinned to the main repository. Let’s now go through an example of setting up a second repository and enabling updates of a package from it.
First, check that we have support for multiple repositories, and have only one enabled (as is the case by default):
$ tlmgr repository list List of repositories (with tags if set): /var/www/norbert/tlnet
Ok. Let’s add the tlcontrib repository (this is a real
repository hosted at http://contrib.texlive.info) with the tag tlcontrib:
$ tlmgr repository add http://contrib.texlive.info/current tlcontrib
Check the repository list again:
$ tlmgr repository list
List of repositories (with tags if set):
http://contrib.texlive.info/current (tlcontrib)
/var/www/norbert/tlnet (main)
Now we specify a pinning entry to get the package classico from
tlcontrib:
$ tlmgr pinning add tlcontrib classico
Check that we can find classico:
$ tlmgr show classico package: classico ... shortdesc: URW Classico fonts ...
- install classico:
$ tlmgr install classico tlmgr: package repositories: ... [1/1, ??:??/??:??] install: classico @tlcontrib [737k]
In the output here you can see that the classico package has been
installed from the tlcontrib repository (@tlcontrib).
Finally, tlmgr pinning also supports removing certain or all packages
from a given repository:
$ tlmgr pinning remove tlcontrib classico # remove just classico $ tlmgr pinning remove tlcontrib --all # take nothing from tlcontrib
A summary of tlmgr pinning actions is given above.
The graphical user interface for tlmgr requires Perl/Tk
https://search.cpan.org/search?query=perl%2Ftk. For Unix-based
systems Perl/Tk (as well as Perl of course) has to be installed
outside of TL. https://tug.org/texlive/distro.html#perltk has a
list of invocations for some distros. For Windows the necessary
modules are no longer shipped within TeX Live, so you’ll have to have an
external Perl available that includes them.
We are talking here about the GUI built into tlmgr itself, not about the other tlmgr GUIs, which are: tlshell (Tcl/Tk-based), tlcockpit (Java-based) and, only on Macs, TeX Live Utility. These are invoked as separate programs.
The GUI mode of tlmgr is started with the invocation tlmgr gui;
assuming Tk is loadable, the graphical user interface will be shown.
The main window contains a menu bar, the main display, and a status
area where messages normally shown on the console are displayed.
Within the main display there are three main parts: the Display
configuration area, the list of packages, and the action buttons.
Also, at the top right the currently loaded repository is shown; this
also acts as a button and when clicked will try to load the default
repository. To load a different repository, see the tlmgr menu item.
Finally, the status area at the bottom of the window gives additional information about what is going on.
The first part of the main display allows you to specify (filter) which packages are shown. By default, all are shown. Changes here are reflected right away.
Select whether to show all packages (the default), only those installed, only those not installed, or only those with update available.
Select which categories are shown: packages, collections, and/or schemes. These are briefly explained in the DESCRIPTION section above.
Select packages matching for a specific pattern. By default, this searches both descriptions and filenames. You can also select a subset for searching.
Select packages to those selected, those not selected, or all. Here, “selected” means that the checkbox in the beginning of the line of a package is ticked.
To the right there are three buttons: select all packages, select none (a.k.a. deselect all), and reset all these filters to the defaults, i.e., show all available.
The second are of the main display lists all installed packages. If a repository is loaded, those that are available but not installed are also listed.
Double clicking on a package line pops up an informational window with further details: the long description, included files, etc.
Each line of the package list consists of the following items:
Used to select particular packages; some of the action buttons (see below) work only on the selected packages.
The name (identifier) of the package as given in the database.
If the package is installed the TeX Live revision number for the installed package will be shown. If there is a catalogue version given in the database for this package, it will be shown in parentheses. However, the catalogue version, unlike the TL revision, is not guaranteed to reflect what is actually installed.
If a repository has been loaded the revision of the package in the repository (if present) is shown. As with the local column, if a catalogue version is provided it will be displayed. And also as with the local column, the catalogue version may be stale.
The short description of the package.
Below the list of packages are several buttons:
This calls tlmgr update --all, i.e., tries to update all available
packages. Below this button is a toggle to allow reinstallation of
previously removed packages as part of this action.
The other four buttons only work on the selected packages, i.e., those where the checkbox at the beginning of the package line is ticked.
Update only the selected packages.
Install the selected packages; acts like tlmgr install, i.e., also
installs dependencies. Thus, installing a collection installs all its
constituent packages.
Removes the selected packages; acts like tlmgr remove, i.e., it will
also remove dependencies of collections (but not dependencies of normal
packages).
Makes a backup of the selected packages; acts like tlmgr backup. This
action needs the option backupdir set (see Options - General>).
The following entries can be found in the menu bar:
tlmgr menuThe items here load various repositories: the default as specified in
the TeX Live database, the default network repository, the repository
specified on the command line (if any), and an arbitrarily
manually-entered one. Also has the so-necessary quit operation.
Options menuProvides access to several groups of options: Paper (configuration of
default paper sizes), Platforms (only on Unix, configuration of the
supported/installed platforms), GUI Language (select language used in
the GUI interface), and General (everything else).
Several toggles are also here. The first is Expert options, which is
set by default. If you turn this off, the next time you start the GUI a
simplified screen will be shown that display only the most important
functionality. This setting is saved in the configuration file of
tlmgr; see CONFIGURATION FILE FOR TLMGR for details.
The other toggles are all off by default: for debugging output, to disable the automatic installation of new packages, and to disable the automatic removal of packages deleted from the server. Playing with the choices of what is or isn’t installed may lead to an inconsistent TeX Live installation; e.g., when a package is renamed.
Actions menuProvides access to several actions: update the filename database (aka
ls-R, mktexlsr, texhash), rebuild all formats (fmtutil-sys
--all), update the font map database (updmap-sys), restore from a backup
of a package, and use of symbolic links in system directories (not on
Windows).
The final action is to remove the entire TeX Live installation (also not on Windows).
Help menuProvides access to the TeX Live manual (also on the web at https://tug.org/texlive/doc.html) and the usual “About” box.
Some generic Perl/Tk options can be specified with tlmgr gui to
control the display:
-background colorSet background color.
-font " fontname fontsize "Set font, e.g., tlmgr gui -font "helvetica 18". The argument to
-font must be quoted, i.e., passed as a single string.
-foreground colorSet foreground color.
-geometry geomspecSet the X geometry, e.g., tlmgr gui -geometry 1024x512-0+0 creates
the window of (approximately) the given size in the upper-right corner
of the display.
-xrm xresourcePass the arbitrary X resource string xresource.
A few other obscure options are recognized but not mentioned here. See the Perl/Tk documentation (https://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Tk) for the complete list, and any X documentation for general information.
With the --machine-readable option, tlmgr writes to stdout in the
fixed line-oriented format described here, and the usual informational
messages for human consumption are written to stderr (normally they are
written to stdout). The idea is that a program can get all the
information it needs by reading stdout.
Currently this option only applies to the update, install, and option actions.
update and install output ¶The output format is as follows:
fieldname "\t" value ... "end-of-header" pkgname status localrev serverrev size runtime esttot ... "end-of-updates" other output from post actions, not in machine readable form
The header section currently has two fields: location-url (the
repository source from which updates are being drawn), and
total-bytes (the total number of bytes to be downloaded).
The localrev and serverrev fields for each package are the revision numbers in the local installation and server repository, respectively. The size field is the number of bytes to be downloaded, i.e., the size of the compressed tar file for a network installation, not the unpacked size. The runtime and esttot fields are only present for updated and auto-install packages, and contain the currently passed time since start of installation/updates and the estimated total time.
Line endings may be either LF or CRLF depending on the current platform.
location-url locationThe location may be a url (including file:///foo/bar/...), or a
directory name (/foo/bar). It is the package repository from which
the new package information was drawn.
total-bytes countThe count is simply a decimal number, the sum of the sizes of all the packages that need updating or installing (which are listed subsequently).
Then comes a line with only the literal string end-of-header.
Each following line until a line with literal string end-of-updates
reports on one package. The fields on
each line are separated by a tab. Here are the fields.
The TeX Live package identifier, with a possible platform suffix for
executables. For instance, pdftex and pdftex.i386-linux are given
as two separate packages, one on each line.
The status of the package update. One character, as follows:
dThe package was removed on the server.
fThe package was removed in the local installation, even though a
collection depended on it. (E.g., the user ran tlmgr remove
--force.)
uNormal update is needed.
rReversed non-update: the locally-installed version is newer than the version on the server.
aAutomatically-determined need for installation, the package is new on the server and is (most probably) part of an installed collection.
iPackage will be installed and isn’t present in the local installation (action install).
IPackage is already present but will be reinstalled (action install).
The revision number of the installed package, or - if it is not
present locally.
The revision number of the package on the server, or - if it is not
present on the server.
The size in bytes of the package on the server. The sum of all the
package sizes is given in the total-bytes header field mentioned above.
The run time since start of installations or updates.
The estimated total time.
option output ¶The output format is as follows:
key "\t" value
If a value is not saved in the database the string (not set) is shown.
If you are developing a program that uses this output, and find that changes would be helpful, do not hesitate to write the mailing list.
tlmgr uses many of the standard TeX environment variables, as
reported by, e.g., tlmgr conf (conf).
In addition, for ease in scripting and debugging, tlmgr looks for the
following environment variables. These are not of interest for normal
user installations.
TEXLIVE_COMPRESSORThis variable allows selecting a different compressor program for backups and intermediate rollback containers. The order of selection is:
TEXLIVE_COMPRESSOR is
defined, use it; abort if it doesn’t work. Possible values:
lz4, gzip, xz. The necessary options are added internally.
lz4 and gzip are faster in creating tlmgr’s local backups, hence they are preferred. The unconditional use of xz for the tlnet containers is unaffected, to minimize download sizes.
TEXLIVE_DOWNLOADERTL_DOWNLOAD_PROGRAMTL_DOWNLOAD_ARGSThese options allow selecting different download programs then the ones automatically selected by the installer. The order of selection is:
TEXLIVE_DOWNLOADER is defined, use it;
abort if the specified program doesn’t work. Possible values: lwp,
curl, wget. The necessary options are added internally.
TL_DOWNLOAD_PROGRAM is
defined (can be any value), use it together with
TL_DOWNLOAD_ARGS; abort if it doesn’t work.
TL provides wget binaries for platforms where necessary, so some
download method should always be available.
TEXLIVE_PREFER_OWNBy default, compression and download programs provided by the system,
i.e., found along PATH are preferred over those shipped with TeX
Live.
This can create problems with systems that are too old, and so can be
overridden by setting the environment variable TEXLIVE_PREFER_OWN to
1. In this case, executables shipped with TL will be preferred.
Extra compression/download programs not provided by TL, such as gzip,
lwp, and curl, are still checked for on the system and used if
available, per the above. TEXLIVE_PREFER_OWN only applies when the
program being checked for is shipped with TL, namely the lz4 and
xz compressors and wget downloader.
Exception: on Windows, the tar.exe shipped with TL is always used,
regardless of any setting.
This script and its documentation were written for the TeX Live distribution (https://tug.org/texlive) and both are licensed under the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later.
$Id: tlmgr.pl 70001 2024-02-19 23:17:07Z karl $
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There is one exception in TL: the
tangle-sh and related rules use $@ to mean the target
name, a feature not present in all makes. This could be
alleviated by laborious editing, but since there’s no way to avoid GNU
make for builds of the entire tree, it does not seem worth the
trouble.