Re: texconfig action and site-wide changes

Hi Frank,

> It seems to me that "texconfig-sys init" should call fmtutil-sys and
> updmap-sys, too, not fmtutil and updmap plain - I didn't check for
> texlinks.]

That is wrong, just try
  texconfig-sys formats
change some bits in the config file (->goes via "fmtutil --edit" to
TEXMFSYSCONFIG) and the changed/added formats to via "fmtutil --byfmt"
to TEXMFSYSVAR).

The environment manipulation done in texconfig-sys has of course not
only some effect on the texconfig script that it calls, but also to all
other subprocesses.

> I have tried to understand how texconfig works if a user invokes it. As
> far as I can see, for every configuration file they touch, a copy is
> generated in TEXMFCONFIG (which is $HOME/.texmf-config by default).

Right.

> This seems to have the (probably unwanted effect) that the user is thus
> cut-off from site-wide changes.

The same is true if some user puts a custom copy of koma-script into
his $TEXMFHOME.

> If a user changes a configuration file $cfile for the first time, the
> changed file after "check_out" is not only copied or cat'ed to
> $TEXMFCONFIG/$relDir/$cfile, but additionally a diff or the change regex

Well, this sounds like a complicated solution (different config files
would need different kind of updates) with a questionable effect.

Thomas