The recommended LaTeX port?

[Polytropon]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2018 20:41:50 +0700, Victor Sudakov wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> Which is *the* \LaTeX distribution for FreeBSD currently?
> 
> I remember last time I needed \LaTex around a dozen years ago, I used
> the teTeX port, but cannot find it now.

This is currect, teTeX has been discontinued. The consensus
is to use TeXlive which is in FreeBSD ports, but is offered
for many other platforms, too.



> Cyrillic support is crucial, direct output to PDF is very desirable,
> dependency on GUI libs and tools is not desirable.

With TeXlive, you have the same tools (and more packages)
as teTeX, so the switch should be possible without problems.
For cyrillic text, only used occassionally, I use

	\usepackage[OT2,T1]{fontenc}
	\newcommand{\textcyr}[1]{{\donothyphenate\fontencoding{OT2}\selectfont #1}}

and then

	\textcyr{USTANOVKA ChASTOTY PEREDATChIKA}

or

	\textcyr{OSVEShchENIE}

The "replacements" like Kh, Ch, S and Z are of course
quite idiotic, but what else do you expect when EN-US
becomes the master of all the languages... ;-)

Additionally, it _should_ be possible to use UTF-8
input sources with cyrillic letters directly, using

	\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}

and then using the cyrillic letters directly (as 2-byte
"characters").



> (in a whisper) please also recommend a \LaTeX distibution for
> Windows...

TeXlive also replaces MiKTeX, the common "Windows" LaTeX
version. It even has an installer "wizard"... :-)



On Sun, 19 Aug 2018 20:53:46 +0700, Victor Sudakov wrote:
> I forgot to mention that I've tried a couple of online editors like
> https://www.sharelatex.com/ but they all lacked Cyrillic support
> miserably (Cyrillic characters either did not show in the compiled
> output, or showed as mojibake).

Just use a normal editor inside a terminal that can input
and display cyrillic letters. Even ye olde xterm can do it.
Make sure you set your environment variables correctly,
i. e., en_US.UTF-8.

I have no idea if LyX, the WYSIWYG variant for LaTeX, is
still available. Personally, I prefer YAFIYGI because it
works.


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...