1 (This file was generated by makeinfo and splitinfo.gawk.)
2 (Released under the old-style GNU documentation license;
3 see sources or other output files for full text.)
8 This section discusses the results of 'make install' in the source tree.
10 The main consideration is that 'make install' is not enough to make a
11 usable TeX installation. Beyond the compiled binaries, (thousands of)
12 support files are needed; just as a first example 'plain.tex' is not in
15 These support files are maintained completely independently and are
16 not present in the source tree. The best basis for dealing with them is
17 the TeX Live (plain text) database in 'Master/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb',
18 and/or the TeX Live installer, 'install-tl'. More information is under
19 'Master/tlpkg' and at <http://tug.org/texlive/distro.html>.
21 5.1 Installation directories
22 ============================
24 Running 'make install' (or 'make install-strip') installs executables in
25 'BINDIR', libraries in 'LIBDIR', headers in 'INCLUDEDIR', general data
26 (including "linked scripts", *note Linked scripts::) in
27 'DATAROOTDIR/texmf-dist', man pages in 'MANDIR', and Info files in
30 The values of these directories are determined by 'configure' and can
31 be specified explictly as options such as '--prefix=PREFIX' or
32 '--bindir=BINDIR'; otherwise, they are given by their usual Autoconf
37 BINDIR EXEC_PREFIX/bin
38 LIBDIR EXEC_PREFIX/lib
39 INCLUDEDIR PREFIX/include
40 DATAROOTDIR PREFIX/share
41 MANDIR DATAROOTDIR/man
42 INFODIR DATAROOTDIR/info
44 except possibly modified as follows:
46 * If the option '--enable-multiplatform' is given, '/PLATFORM' (i.e.,
47 the canonical platform name) is appended to 'BINDIR' and 'LIBDIR'.
48 This is implied for a native TL build.
50 * In a native TL build, 'DATAROOTDIR' is set to 'PREFIX', 'INFODIR'
51 is set to 'PREFIX/texmf-dist/doc/info', and 'MANDIR' to
52 'PREFIX/texmf-dist/doc/man', corresponding to the directories used
53 in the TL distribution.
55 The top-level 'configure' script displays all these installation paths.
57 For the native TL build, the 'Build' script leaves the binaries in
58 './inst/bin/STD-PLATFORM-NAME'. The new binaries are not directly
59 usable from that location; they need to be copied to
60 'Master/bin/TL-PLATFORM'. The other files and directories that end up
61 in './inst/' are ignored.
66 Quite a few executables are architecture-independent shell, Perl, or
67 other interpreted scripts, rather than compiled binaries. A few are
68 maintained as part of the TL source tree, but most are maintained
69 elsewhere with copies under 'texk/texlive/linked_scripts'.
71 These so-called "linked scripts" are installed under
72 'DATAROOTDIR/texmf-dist/scripts'; for Unix-like systems a symbolic link
73 is made in 'BINDIR'. For example, a symlink points from 'BINDIR/ps2eps'
74 to 'DATAROOTDIR/texmf-dist/scripts/ps2eps/ps2eps.pl'. For Windows, a
75 standard wrapper binary (e.g., 'BINDIR/ps2eps.exe') serves the same
76 purpose. (The source for the wrapper is in 'texk/texlive/w32_wrapper'.)
78 One reason for this is to avoid having many copies of the same
79 script; a more important reason is that it guarantees the scripts will
80 stay in sync across the different supported operating systems.
82 Most important of all, we want the 'BINDIR' resulting from the build
83 to be as close as possible to what is in the TL distribution. At
84 present, there are a few exceptions--Asymptote, Biber, Xindy--and each
85 one creates considerable extra work. We don't want to add more. (See
86 <http://tug.org/texlive/build.html> for information about building those
87 exceptions, as well as the 'xz' and 'wget' programs that are used in the
93 Although they use the same code base, building for the native TL
94 distribution as shipped by the TeX user groups is typically quite
95 different from a "distro" build needed by, e.g., a full GNU/Linux or BSD
96 operating system distribution.
98 The native TL distribution uses shared libraries only when absolutely
99 necessary ('libc', 'libm', X11 libraries, and 'libfontconfig').
100 However, a distro typically wants to use as many shared libraries as
101 possible from elsewhere on the system, including TeX-specific libraries
102 such as 'libkpathsea' (even though Kpathsea has never officially been
103 released as a shared library, but we digress). In addition, the
104 installation paths will, in general, be completely different.
106 Here are the 'configure' options that distro builds are likely to
109 '--disable-native-texlive-build'
110 This must be specified to avoid interference from the many tweaks
111 we do for the native TL build.
113 '--with-banner-add=/SOMEDISTRO'
114 This isn't technically required, but is strongly recommended, so
115 your build and your distro can be distinguished from others.
118 Build shared versions of the TeX-specific libraries (uses
122 Do not build the static versions of the TeX-specific libraries.
125 Use system versions for as many libraries LIB as possible.
126 'configure --help' will give you the list of possibilities.
128 '--with-LIB-includes=DIR'
129 '--with-LIB-libdir=DIR'
130 If needed, allows you to specify where the headers/code are for the
134 '--prefix=/opt/TeXLive'
135 Or whatever your convention is. The default is '/usr/local' and
136 you shouldn't install there for a distro.
138 '--libdir=\${exec_prefix}/lib64'
139 May be needed for 64-bit bi-architecture (GNU/Linux) systems.
141 You will need to take care of the support files mentioned above
142 (*note Installing::), and many other issues, such as font maps,
143 languages, and formats, independently of the build. Norbert Preining
144 has written a detailed article on adapting TL for distros:
145 <http://tug.org/TUGboat/tb34-3/tb108preining-distro.pdf>. (If the
146 article needs updating in the future, perhaps we will merge it into this