============================================================ Installation instructions for VTeX/Free 8.44.2 on Linux x86 ( = VTeX/Lnx 8.46a) ============================================================ 2005-02-11 Walter Schmidt Contents -------- What is VTeX/Lnx? Prerequisites Required files Installing VTeX/Lnx Deleting obsolete files Installing the Adobe Euro fonts Creating the LaTeX format file Creating the plain TeX format file Documentation Known bugs Support Legal stuff What is VTeX/Lnx? ----------------- VTeX/Lnx is a TeX program for Linux(x86) that generates PDF or PostScript output immediately from the TeX source file. It comes with a basic LaTeX system, including many additional packages and fonts, as well as the Bibtex and Makeindex programs. Plain TeX is also included. In contrast to traditional TeX systems, no intermediate DVI files need to be generated, no "dvi driver programs" are required, and there is no need to take care of their -- sometimes fussy -- setup. In contrast to pdfTeX, VTeX includes a full PostScript interpreter, so that inclusion of EPS images as well as inline PostScript programming, i.e., PSTricks, psfrag etc. are fully supported, The common PostScript and PDF viewers GSView and Adobe Reader can be used for (pre)viewing and printing. Output files from VTeX are immediately suitable for public distribution, e.g., over the WWW, since PostScript and PDF are standardized document formats -- as opposed to the TeX-specific DVI format. The VTeX engine supports the eTeX extensions. Prerequisites ------------- VTeX/Lnx requires Linux on the Intel (x86) platfom and at least 16Mb of physical memory. VTeX/Lnx is an ELF executable requiring the "glibc" libraries. You must have installed Ghostscript, so as to provide a PostScript and PDF reader. It is highly recommended to provide also Adobe Reader, because this is the "canonical" PDF reader, and because certain hypertext features of the PDF format are not supported by Ghostscript. Make sure to use version 4.05 or later! VTeX/Lnx is to be installed on an ext2 filesystem, because it makes use of long file names. The complete TeX system will require about 80MB of disk space. | VTeX/Lnx has been reported not to run on a freshly | installed SuSE Linux 9.1. As a workaround put the | following command into /etc/profile.local or into | ~/.bashrc | | export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1 | | or, with the tcsh shell, say | | setenv LD_ASSUME_KERNEL 2.4.1 | | If you experience any further problems running VTeX/Lnx | with your Linux, please, report to the maillist, so we | can try to provide a workaround. Required files -------------- vtexlnx-8442.zip vtex-base-8442.zip vtex-base2-8442.zip vtex-special-8442.zip vtex-fonts-8442.zip vtex-fonts2.zip vtex-doc-8422.zip vtex-cbfonts.zip (optional) vtex-gex.zip (optional) vtex-koma.zip (optional) vtex-sem.zip (optional) Remarks: vtex-gex.zip is unchanged since v7.320. vtex-fonts2.zip is unchanged since v7.53. You need not download them once again, if you have them already. vtex-cbfonts.zip contains the Greek Computer Modren fonts, aka "CB fonts". Omit this archive, if you do not intend to use them. vtex-gex.zip includes the documentation of VTeX's built-in PostScript interpreter; omit this file, if you want. The archive vtex-koma.zip includes the "KOMA-Script" document classes for use with LaTeX. In case you have already installed these document classes yourself, or if you don't intend to use them, omit this archive. The archive vtex-sem.zip includes the LaTeX packages seminar and prosper; you need not install it, unless you actually want to use these packages. Optional files can be installed later, by simply unpacking the archives in directory /usr/local. Installing VTeX/Lnx ------------------- (0) Any installed version of VTeX _prior_ to 7.10 is to be entirely removed. Later versions, however, can be updated automatically. (1) In case you are already running a previous version of VTeX/Lnx and have customized the following configuration files, you should back up the files now: /etc/vtex.ini /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/pdf.fm /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/ps.fm /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/hyphen.cfg /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/plain.cfg | They will be overwritten in course of the subsequent | installation procedure; please, check your settings | against the new files afterwards! | If you have previously installed the "CB fonts" package | from , do not add the | record for cb.ali to the .fm files again. | Rationale: Records for the CB fonts are now part of the | default configuration, see the file cm.ali. (2) Unzip vtexlnx.zip in the directory /usr/local/vtex. [Create, this directory, if it does not yet exist cd /usr/local mkdir vtex ] cd vtex unzip /vtexlnx-8442 Doing so will create several subdirectories: When updating a previously installed VTeX, the unzip program will ask you whether to overwrite existing files: Enter "A" (i.e, "all files"). This holds also for the next step. | Alternatively, you may install VTeX in a different | directory than /usr/local. In this case, notice | subsection (6) below! (3) Unzip the remaining ZIP files in the directory /usr/local/vtex: unzip /vtex-base-8442 unzip /vtex-base2-8442 unzip /vtex-special-8442 unzip /vtex-fonts-8442 unzip /vtex-doc-8442 unzip /vtex-fonts2 unzip /vtex-cbfonts unzip /vtex-gex unzip /vtex-koma unzip /vtex-sem Doing so will create a directory named texmf with several subdirectories. (4) When installing over a previous release, certain obsolete files may not be overwritten automatically during the above steps, because they reside in other directories now or have been renamed or abolished. They need to be deleted manually now. Make sure that /usr/local/vtex is still the current directory; then execute the Makefile install/cleanup.lnx there: make -f install/cleanup.lnx (5) When VTeX/Lnx is installed for the first time, copy vtex.ini from /usr/local/vtex/install to the directory /etc. This is the main configuration file, which can be customized -- see section 2.2 of the VTeX/Free manual. Do not remove the unchanged "template" from the vtex/install directory! (6) In case you have installed VTeX in a different directory than /usr/local, you need either to create a link /usr/local/vtex -> /your_install_dir/vtex or edit the files etc/vtex.ini and texmf/vtex/config, and replace every occurrence of /usr/local with the absolute path to your install directory; note that you cannot use environment variables such as $HOME in these files. (7) When VTeX/Lnx is installed for the first time: Add /usr/local/vtex/bin to your $PATH . (8) Make sure that all of the texmf directory tree is readable for everyone: chmod -R a+r /usr/local/vtex/texmf/* Creating the LaTeX format file ------------------------------ Open a command line shell in an arbitrary working directory (however, not inside the TeX directory tree) and execute the following shell script: makevlatex You should move the log file latex.log to the directory /usr/local/vtex/fmt, so as to store it with the format file. If there is a complaint in the log file about "BAD file texsys.aux", then you have to delete any file texsys.aux which may exist in the current directory, or in the directory /usr/local/vtex/texmf/tex/latex/base or in the directory /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config and try again. Make sure that the generated format file is readable for everyone: chmod -R a+r /usr/local/vtex/fmt/* Now you should check, whether the installation works: Run the file ltxcheck.tex through LaTeX, thus making sure that the installation works. The file resides in the directory texmf/source/latex/base. Switch to this directory cd /usr/local/vtex/texmf/source/latex/base and execute the following command: vlatex ltxcheck This will produce a number of messages, each of which should be "OK". Creating the plain TeX format file ---------------------------------- Omit this step, if you don't know what "plain TeX" is! Execute the following command in an arbitrary working directory (however, not inside the TeX directory tree): makevplain You should move the log file plain.log to the directory /usr/local/vtex/fmt, so as to store it with the format file. Make sure that the generated format file is readable for everyone: chmod -R a+r /usr/local/vtex/fmt/* Documentation ------------- See the files in the directory texmf\doc\vtex: local.eng Preliminary LaTeX Local Guide (READ THIS FIRST!) plain.eng plain TeX Local Guide (ignore it, if you don't know what "plain TeX" is) vtex.pdf The VTeX/Free manual etex_man.pdf eTeX manual gex.pdf GeX Manual mm_man.pdf How to use MM fonts with VTeX forms.pdf How to use PDF forms from TeX animgif.pdf How to include animated GIFs into PDF documents examples/* Sample documents The sample file tryanim.tex and part of the examples in the document animgif.pdf may not work with Acrobat Reader 5 or later, due to the "features" of the latest Acrobat. They do, however, work with Acrobat 4 and (almost) with Acrobat Reader 3 on OS/2. Known bugs and problems ----------------------- The Bibtex and Makeindex programs cannot search recursively for database and style files (.bst, .bib, .ist). However, all such files that come with the distribution, _are_ found. Note that this affects only the Linux version! Support ------- The NTG hosts a mailing list that can be used both to ask questions and to report bugs in the software and/or installation. The list has a web interface for subscribing, unsubscribing, accessing the archives etc: Legal stuff ----------- MicroPress and VTeX are trademarks of MicroPress, Inc. The MicroPress' components of the VTeX/Lnx distribution are Copyright (C) 1998--2005 by MicroPress Inc. The MicroPress' components of the VTeX/Lnx distribution are free for personal use, subject to the following restriction: Redistribution is allowed only as a part of the complete VTeX/Lnx system, and only if all of the following files remain unchanged and are distributed as a whole: readme-linux.eng vtexlnx-8442.zip vtex2-8442.zip vtex-base-8442.zip vtex-base2-8442.zip vtex-special-8442.zip vtex-fonts-8442.zip vtex-fonts2.zip vtex-doc-8422.zip vtex-cbfonts.zip vtex-gex.zip vtex-koma.zip vtex-sem.zip Adobe, Acrobat and PostScript are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. == finis