Re: Problem with kpsewhich on a new instal

Gosh! I can't believe that this would be necessary to move a TL-tree which
should be a very desirable thing to have.

What is the meaning of "portable" as an option to the installer?  I have not
been able to fully figure what it is.

Paulo Ney



On Mon, May 18, 2026 at 6:33 PM Max Chernoff <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Paulo,
>
> On Mon, 2026-05-18 at 17:55 -0700, Paulo Ney de Souza wrote:
> > I should add that I am looking for a solution where TL would continue
> > to work after a move of directories  -- WITHOUT -- having to change
> anything
> > in TL, meaning, in a robust way.
>
> Perhaps an easier option is to make it so that your $HOME doesn't move.
> I know that you can't control where the system administrators put your
> $HOME, but you can easily open a new shell in a namespace where your
> $HOME is mounted wherever you want by running either of the following
> commands:
>
>     $ systemd-run --user -p PrivateUsers=true -p TemporaryFileSystem=/mnt/
> -p BindPaths=$HOME:/mnt/some-username -p
> Environment=HOME=/mnt/some-username -p WorkingDirectory=/mnt/some-username
> --shell
>
>     $ bwrap --dev-bind / / --tmpfs /mnt/ --ro-bind $HOME
> /mnt/some-username --setenv HOME /mnt/some-username --chdir
> /mnt/some-username $SHELL
>
> You could even add one of those to your ".<shell>rc" file if you want to
> automatically run that on startup. I'm not saying that this is the best
> solution, but it's probably easier to fake-move your home than it is to
> configure every single one of your installed programs to correctly look
> up the directory every time.
>
> Thanks,
> -- Max
>