I need to install LaTex on Debian 5 (Lenny) on i686-32 (Intel 686, 32 bit), but what appears to best is latex209-bin which states that it is obsolete and to use LaTeX 2e.

The system was built without the desktop option, that is why there is no latex installed.

Looking at the list of similar packages did not reveal LaTeX 2e, or anything that looked like it would do LaTeX.

Using the option here to find similar threads based on the topic turned up texlive-latex-base.

Is that the best option.

Thanks

Hi,

Install texlive package. It's a metapackage that installs a decent selection of Latex tools. If you miss something, consider also installing texlive-fonts-recommended, texlive-generic-extra, texlive-latex-extra, texlive-latex-recommended, or look for other texlive* packages.

Cheers

TeX Live (prepared by the TeX Users Group: texlive.tug.org) is the
recommended distribution for unix/linux. The LaTeX version is latex2e.


There are debian packages for TeX Live 2007. The current TeX Live
2008 has its own packaging system. It is designed to be installed
in a single top-level directory (e.g., in violation of the debian
rules!), which means it can coexist with the older version (you control
which is used by adjusting the PATH variable). Work is underway to
package TL2008, but given the changes and the complexity of TeX Live,
it is a very big job and will take some time to appear.

The binaries from TUG are provided by volunteers, and not all linux
distributions can run them, but it is not hard to rebuild from
sources if you can't use the available binaries.

Hi,

I've read on Debian and TeX Live mailing lists that TL2008 will not appear for Debian. Since TL 2009 is expected to come soon, bringing some important improvements, it's more likely that this version will be packaged next.

Stefan


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