Hey,
Has anyone had any success in creating a package from the XeTeX sources? It comes with a custobm uild-xetex and install-xetex rather than the standard configure; make; make install.

I use src2pkg and trackinstall to make packages but simply running trackinstall -i='sh install-xetex' doesn't do the trick. I ended up building a package using the -JAIL option but it doesn't work properly.

Any tips?

Hmm, I haven't tried to package XeTeX but install the whole TexLive distribution which contain ready-to-run XeTeX and it's dependencies. It will install all the stuffs into /usr/local/texlive by default and is rather easy to remove. The only side effect is to download a 2.4GB DVD image. You could have a try.

Is texlive much bigeer in size than tetex?
I wonder if its gonna replace it in slackware at some point..

I recently wrote to Patrick about that issue. He replied that it might be considered in the future. The great problem is that texlive is too big to be included untrimmed. If you are interested in texlive, I have made it into a package with a scriptq which I could send to you or post here. It works perfectly on my system. These days texlive 2008 will come out, so I will bother to package it as well.

I looked into texlive but it didn't look much more straightforward to install than XeTeX. If there's a script for compiling I'd like to take a look at it though. Thanks for all the answers B.

texlive 2008 have already come out as I'm using it now~The fully installed texlive2008 is 1.6GB big....

Ok, here follows my texlive.SlackBuild script. I used it to successfully build texlive-2007 package. Probably it will be as successful to build texlive-2008 as well.

#!/bin/sh

PRGNAM=texlive
VERSION=2007.02.12
PKG_VERSION=$VERSION
ARCH=${ARCH:-i386}
BUILD=${BUILD:-1}
TAG=${TAG:-_mai}
CWD=$(pwd)
PKG="/home/marto/build/tmp/package-$PRGNAM"
OUTPUT=${OUTPUT:-/home/marto/build/packages}

rm -rf $PKG
mkdir -p $PKG $OUTPUT
export TEXLIVE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/share
export TEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXDIR=/usr/share/texmf
export TEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFLOCAL=/usr/share/texmf-local
export TEXLIVE_INSTALL_TEXMFSYSVAR=/usr/share/texmf-var
sh /mnt/cdrw/install-tl.sh || exit 1

cd /usr/share/texmf || exit 1
echo "Adjusting directory structure:"
mv bin/i386-linux/* bin
rmdir bin/i386-linux
mv texmf/* .
rmdir texmf
cp -R texmf-var /usr/share
rm -rf texmf-var
mv texmf-dist /usr/share
mv texmf-doc /usr/share

PATH="$PATH:/usr/share/texmf/bin"
if [ ! -r /usr/share/texmf/bin/latex ]; then
texconfig-sys init
fi
texconfig-sys confall
texconfig-sys dvips paper letter
texconfig-sys xdvi paper us
texconfig-sys mode ljfour
texconfig-sys dvips paper a4
texconfig-sys xdvi paper a4
texconfig-sys dvips printcmd -
texconfig-sys dvips add bjc600
texconfig-sys dvips add stcolor
texconfig-sys dvips add deskjet
texconfig-sys dvips add ljet4
texconfig-sys dvips -P bjc600 mode canonbjc
texconfig-sys dvips -P stcolor mode epstylus
texconfig-sys dvips -P deskjet mode deskjet
texconfig-sys dvips -P ljet4 mode ljfour
texconfig-sys font ro
texconfig-sys rehash

# Discard local configurations:
if [ -e /root/.texmf-config ]; then
mv /root/.texmf-config /root/.texmf-config-$(mcookie)
echo "/root/.texmf-config moved out of the way... you may wish"
echo "to purge any /root/.texmf-config-* directories if the"
echo "cruft heap gets too large."
fi

cd $PKG
mkdir -p usr/share
echo "Moving files from system directories into package texlive structure:"
mv /usr/share/texmf usr/share
mv /usr/share/texmf-var usr/share
mv /usr/share/texmf-dist usr/share
mv /usr/share/texmf-local usr/share
mv /usr/share/texmf-doc usr/share

echo "Adjusting permissions:"
chown -R root:root .
find . -type f -perm 666 -exec chmod 644 {} \;
chmod 0755 usr/share/texmf-var
find usr/share/texmf-var -type f -exec chmod 0644 {} \;
find usr/share/texmf-var -type d -exec chmod 0755 {} \;

mkdir -p etc/profile.d
cd etc/profile.d
cat > texlive.sh << EOF
PATH="$PATH:/usr/share/texmf/bin"
MANPATH="$MANPATH:/usr/share/texmf/doc/man"
EOF
cat > texlive.csh << EOF
setenv PATH $PATH:/usr/share/texmf/bin
setenv MANPATH=$MANPATH:/usr/share/texmf/doc/man
EOF
chmod 0755 texlive.*sh

echo "Stripping everything:"
( cd $PKG
find . | xargs file | grep "executable" | grep ELF | cut -f 1 -d : | xargs strip --strip-unneeded 2> /dev/null
find . | xargs file | grep "shared object" | grep ELF | cut -f 1 -d : | xargs strip --strip-unneeded 2> /dev/null
)

# Compress man pages:
( cd $PKG/usr/share/texmf/doc/man
find . -type f -exec gzip -9 {} \;
for i in $(find . -type l) ; do ln -s $(readlink $i).gz $i.gz ; rm $i ; done
)

# Compress info pages:
( cd $PKG/usr/share/texmf/doc/info
rm -f dir
gzip -9 *
)


mkdir -p $PKG/usr/doc/$PRGNAM-$VERSION
cd $PKG/usr/doc
ln -sf /usr/share/texmf/doc $PRGNAM-$VERSION

# Install script:
mkdir -p $PKG/install
cd $PKG/install
cat > slack-desc << EOF
# HOW TO EDIT THIS FILE:
# The "handy ruler" below makes it easier to edit a package description. Line
# up the first '|' above the ':' following the base package name, and the '|'
# on the right side marks the last column you can put a character in. You must
# make exactly 11 lines for the formatting to be correct. It's also
# customary to leave one space after the ':'.

|-----handy-ruler------------------------------------------------------|
texlive: texlive (the TeX Live distribution)
texlive:
texlive: TeX Live is an easy way to get up and running with TeX. It provides a
texlive: comprehensive TeX system which includes all the major TeX-related
texlive: programs, macro packages, and fonts that are free software, including
texlive: support for many languages around the world. This package uses the
texlive: "TeX Live full scheme".
texlive:
texlive: Learn more about TeX Live at:
texlive: http://www.tug.org/texlive/
texlive:
EOF


cd $PKG
/sbin/makepkg -l y -c n $OUTPUT/$PRGNAM-$PKG_VERSION-$ARCH-$BUILD$TAG.tgz

XeTeX leaves a filelist with the install result
in 'xetex-0.996/Work/xetex-installed-files'

So I made a textfile in /var/log/packages from that :
and used the "Create" function in the old "pkgtool2"
(got it from Vector Linux ?) to create a package.
pkgtool2, a "new" link here
http://web.grizmin.org/linux/pkgtools/ Dead link ?
Worked 2009 , not working now, 2010. Well then, found this
http://www.filewatcher.com/b/ftp/ftp.../RPMS.2.3.html

ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/.SAN0/pub/l...0.9-1.i386.rpm
.....

Thanks for the SlackBuild and for the XeTeX install tip.