tex, teTex, LaTeX help

[Joey Mingrone]

Hello,

I've been told that LaTeX is probably the best solution for creating
scientific papers with math fonts, so I'm trying to get a working
installation.

My first attempt was to install the latex2e-2003.12_1 port, which
installed the tex-3.14159_3 port as a dependency.  This seemed to
work, but there were some things referenced in the documentation that
seemed to be missing.  For example, the amsmath package wasn't
available.  I thought there must be a port specifically for these
fonts, but it seems they are in the teTex port, but that port
conflicts with the tex port and it seems teTex is no longer being
updated.

Is there a guide for getting all this set up, or can some kind soul
suggest a installation method that works well for them?

Thanks,

Joey Mingrone