Re: TexLive compressed inmense Source Tarball do not contain texmf files
- From: Bernd Strieder <strieder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:34:15 +0200
Hello,
Rodericus wrote:
Is it realy necessary to download some gigabytes for having a minimal
working TeX/MF system that could be downloaded some few floppy disks?
Do I realy need a DVD/CD burning and reading powerfull computer for
compiling the sources of a program that ran in the end of the 70s?
The evolution web2c -> tetex --> texlive is in this sense no
evolution, but decadence of fatware!
I don't follow this in any points. I'm sure nobody has ever been keen on
handling lots of floppy discs in boxes. Real admins use tapes :-)
TeXlive DVD is very nice for those without fast connections to the
internet, and to make the latest available to the members of TeX user
groups, which is probably where most of the DVDs end up. If yo need
something smaller than just take tetex. The zipped archive of the
installation iso is below 700MB, not some GB, see CTAN. The DVD
distributed to user group members in Germany includes a CTAN mirror,
that is several GB. Could it be you compare apples and oranges? How
about ordering a DVD?
If you take a somewhat full installation of TeXlive at over 1,5 GB then
it is clear that most people will not use 98% of it, but you can be
almost sure that you won't be missing anything additional, and you can
browse and learn to learn about the useful parts of unused 98%. If you
want to call it like that, the people are decadent, always just
preferring the easiest way, not TeX. TeX systems have developped to
what most people want.
TeX may be from the seventies and run with minimal resources, but LaTeX
and other packages based on LaTeX have added a lot of comfortable
things needing their fair share of resources, computing power as well
as disc space. This is what most users prefer today. Since LaTeX2e in
1994 the time where 1MB of RAM was enough to run latex is over. I don't
miss the LaTeX before that. At the same time the number of floppy discs
had become too much for me.
Bernd Strieder
.
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