Re: Font packages for TeX

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Ralf Stubner <ralf.stubner@physik.uni-erlangen.de> wrote:

> In order to be usable for teTeX/TeX Live, a font package has to call
>
> update-updmap
> mktexlsr [<TEXMFSYSVAR> <TEXMFMAIN>]
> updmap-sys
>
> update-updamp is in tex-common which the font package depends on. That
> should be fine.
>
> mktexlsr and updmap-sys are in tetex-bin/texlive-basicbin. Since the
> font package does not depend on them, it might happen that the font
> package is configured when tetex-bin/texlive-basicbin is unpacked but
> not configured yet. It might also happen, that the font package is
> configured without tetex-bin/texlive-basicbin being present at all.
> Right?

ACK.

> So the main question for me is whether or not calling mktexlsr and
> updmap-sys with an unconfigured tetex-bin/texlive-basicbin can cause any
> harm. 

mktexlsr:  No.  
updmap-sys:  I don't think so, although it takes unnecessary time.

> If 'yes', one needs to find out the tetex-bin/texlive-basicbin is
> actually configured. How could one do that?

I don't think there's a good solution to this.  Calling dpkg -l while
"dpkg install <long_list> is running might be a bad idea, if it works at
all.  Some hack like "tetex-bin and texlive-basicbin agree to touch
/var/lib/tex-common/bin_is_configured as their last postinst action"
looks extremely ugly to me.

So unless there is a general need for this (i.e. not
TeX-package-specific), and we get a dpkg interface for it,  I fear we
must live with the "takes unnecessary time".

> If 'no', one could either use something like
>
> mktexlsr [<TEXMFSYSVAR> <TEXMFMAIN>] || true
> updmap-sys || true
>
> or
>
> if which mktexlsr >/dev/null 2>&1  && which updmap-sds >/dev/null 2>&1; then
>    mktexlsr [<TEXMFSYSVAR> <TEXMFMAIN>]
>    updmap-sys
> else
>    echo "No TeX-System present."
> fi
>
> I am not sure about the relative merits of the two approaches.
>

The first is missing the stderr redirections, otherwise users will be
confused.  The second has the additional merit of not throwing away
stderr. 

> In addition, I find it interesting that dh_installxfonts adds 
>
> if which update-fonts-dir >/dev/null 2>&1; then
>         update-fonts-scale Type1;update-fonts-dir Type1
> fi
>
> *and* a Depends on xutils. Is this overkill or is there something in the
> policy demanding this?

I think this is overkill.

> BTW, I am not sure how easy it would be to move mktexlsr and updmap to
> tex-common. After all, both these programs use kpsewhich (and friends). 

You are right - we can't do this (unless there's a separate libkpse-bin
providing the kpse* executables)

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer