I have to admit that I have not considered using the texlive package manager. And I do not see a simple way to cope with that. If someone figures out something, he is welcome to improve the script. For myself, I do not use the texlive package manager. Once I install the distribution I keep it as is, til the next official release.

Are there any significant advantages of TeXLive over teTeX? For those people who run into bugs in teTeX I understand the need to move to a maintained package, but teTeX has been working quite well for me so far. I'm not sure that for me it is worth the upgrade, considering that I'm a mathematician and I don't really need any fancy stuff. What would you think?

Hmm, maybe there is a simple(and violent) way to do that - just remove tlmgr with force. You may need to add (you may also need some comment to explain the reason to remove it) before .

This was inspired by the packaged Firefox. In the 'Help' menu, you can see 'Check for updates...' is disabled...

In my view, if teTeX work great for you, you can go still with it. But for me, it will be painful to use teTeX because of the Chinese supporting is poor and painful there.

I am currently writing my PhD thesis. The reason I moved to texlive is because it is current and maintained. For example, when I have problems during writing, I search for help in some LaTeX forums. The people there refuse to help when they hear that I use the obsolete tetex. This forced me to texlive.

Grissiom, I do not see any reason in removing the tlmgr, since I simply can refrain from using it. Besides, I am not well acquainted with this manager. As the build script configures it, texlive goes all in all into 4 system directories, all in /usr/share: texmf, texmf-dist,texmf-local and texmf-var. Won't tlmgr somehow recognize that structure and install the updates according to it? If it does so, then removing texlive would be as simple as removing these 4 directories.

I might use this package manager, but anything it downloads and installs will go into the texmf tree, and if I want to remove it or upgrade it later, any changes will be made to that structure. The texmf tree is a standard for TeX distributions, so I think there is little danger of stuff spilling out into other directories.

Why do I want TeXLive? The biggest reason is TeX4ht. TeX4ht is a very nice utility, is superior to tth and other tools I've used for translation to html, and works really well with TeXLive. Unfortunately, trying to get TeX4ht to work on Slackware with teTeX was a pain, so I'd rather have TeXLive.

There's also other stuff: xeTeX, for example.

Joel

PS: It looks like you can use tlmgr as a normal user, in which case there is no conflict with existing TeX trees at the system level.

Yes, I am using texlive which I installed from the ISO without SlackBuild, i.e., all the files of texlive is not under slackware's package control. And, I am happy updating texlive with tlmgr too. AFAIK, I agree to you that all of texlive goes into that 4 directories. But, slackware's package control tracks File, not only directories. If a file that it's tracking has been removed, it will show:
If a directory contains any file that it's not tracking, it will show:
and will Not remove the directory. Removing and adding files is common when you update. So you cannot get a clean removal if you both use tlmgr and slackware to do package control.

To get the real impact of the texlive update manager you have to consider which files are altered by it. I have not used myself, so I can only take guesses, maybe you know more from using the tool. I can imagine some sort of update log, but that might also be saved in a local folder (like /root/.texlive or /root/.texmf-var ?). If other files are only changed, but no files get deleted and added and no new packages get installed, you might end with the same fileset like before the update. In this case the Slackware pkgtool & Co. could deal with it.

I hope my thoughts are clear enough So my question would be: Does the update manager from texlive only alter existing files or does it really add/remove files and if so: Are the changes restricted to local per user configuration folders or do they touch files that are listed in /var/log/packages/texlive-.... ?

Yes, I think your thoughts is clearer than mine

I don't know the answer about update log since it goes under the earth which I cannot see. After a little search in /var/log/ and texlive directories I cannot find them too...

Yes, tlmgr does Add and Remove packages. As you can see here: http://www.tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr...n______pkg____ which "update --all" is a must-have command in the update work flow. Since the packages are installed in system path, and all the installed files are tracked by slackware, it means tlmgr will touch files that are listed in /var/log/packages/texlive-....

Thanks to a gentle push from tramni1980, I worked up a build script for TeXLive from source; see http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ckware-715655/

Mr Workman,
I have to apologize to you for submitting a build script of poor quality. We all have to thank you for the efforts you put into improving the build. "Improving" is maybe not the appropriate word here, as your build has nothing to do with the script I submitted: I build it from the iso image, while you build it from sources.
I think the community would be glad to know what else is required to make the build compatible with the slackbuild.org's requirements. Maybe some of us will be able to improve your build so that it meets the high standards of the site.

No apology needed. Just because it isn't acceptable for SlackBuilds.org doesn't make it a "poor quality" script at all.

Well, if there are enough people who want that, I guess I can be convinced to do it. Alternatively, if someone just wants to do it themselves, then feel free to send the results to me. Basically, it will require splitting the build into three separate scripts.