teTeX and TeXLive

[Matthias Andree]

Am 11.05.2013 20:36, schrieb Hiroki Sato:
> Hello,
> 
>  As you already noticed, TeXLive ports have been imported and one can
>  choose teTeX or TeXLive while the default value for pre-compiled
>  packages is still teTeX.
> 
>  If you want to use TeXLive, please try to use the following knob:
> 
>  TEX_DEFAULT= texlive
> 
>  To do this, almost all of ports which use TeX will depend on TeXLive.
>  Although some ports which install a new TeX macro package may not
>  work because of incompatibility such as difference of directory
>  structure between the two, ones which use TeX for typesetting should
>  work fine.  Ones to install macro packages which were non-standard in
>  teTeX but are included in TeXLive will be fixed or removed.
> 
>  Please test TeXLive and send your failure report to me.  Once it is
>  confirmed that TEX_DEFAULT=texlive works, I will switch the default
>  value from tetex to texlive at some point.
> 
> -- Hiroki
> 

Hiroki,

thanks for your work.

I have been looking at the texlive-base and -texmf ports, prompted by a
discussion on IRC involving "marino", Niclas Zeising and myself, and I
must say that I am impressed - not to say scared - by the sheer size of
the ports' distfiles (130 MB for base, 1.4 GB for -texmf), and have not
yet taken the time to install and test the port.

I suppose the -texmf port would be "all of texlive".

Is there any optimization we can make to get the texlive material more
manageable?  People have expressed concerns about daily download limits
(although that situation does not affect me personally currently).

Are you aware of a list/overview/... that would explain the difference
between the -base and the -texmf ports?

Is there a way we can have only parts of the texlive system built and
installed?  If so, could you use any help of other people -- and if yes,
what would that be?

Thanks again and
Best regards,
Matthias