Re: texconfig in tetex-3.0 again

"GW" == George White <[email protected]>

    GW> 1.  for security reasons, many sites multi-user systems no
    GW> longer allow users to write to shared areas (e.g. /tmp,
    GW> etc.)

Huh?  Restricting access to files that might actually be read and
used by multiple users (like generated font files) makes some
amount of sense.  But restricting /tmp would be (1) insane,
and (2) break huge numbers of programs that depend on being able
to write to /tmp (or, more securely, to some subdirectory of
/tmp).


    GW> 2.  as a consequence, and because disk is cheaper than sys
    GW> admins, many packages have moved to a configuration that
    GW> is installed and configured by each user on a personal
    GW> workstation or entirely within the user's "home" area on a
    GW> multi-user system.  

You must be kidding me.  Yes, disk is cheaper than sysadmins.  And
if all you need is an out-of-the-box teTeX, then maybe that's good
enough.  But anywhere you've got anything complicated (or
interesting) going on (such as local custom classes and packages),
is going to be a sysadmin deal, or at least involve some highly
clued-in user working with a sysadmin to get things distributed
across system in a sane way.

We install teTeX on every workstation.  But we also have a shared
TEXMF tree and make various modifications to the configuration
files on each workstation so that it can take advantage of the
shared tree, as well as other minor tinkering to make things work
better for our environment.

Very few, maybe even none, of my users could install and configure
their own teTeX installations without significant amounts of help.
Most of them are wickedly intelligent people, but dealing with
computers is not their job, and they wouldn't have the first idea
where to start.


    GW> For many sites, sys admins are expected to make security
    GW> and operational support their priority and aren't expected
    GW> install anything that isn't vendor and site "standard", so
    GW> if a user wants a current teTeX, they must install and
    GW> manage it without sys admin privileges or assistance.

Maybe in some corporate environments, but in academia, a current,
*working*, teTeX installation is a must have.  Packaging for most
Linux distributions (and even Windows and Mac OS X) makes that job
a lot easier, but there's often still additional configuration
that needs to be done, and no one wants to do the same tedious job
more than a couple of times.


    GW> Given this background, administrators configuring teTeX
    GW> for multiple users should realize they are now an atypical
    GW> cases and should expect "surprises" and be prepared to do
    GW> a little extra work, including setting up a special
    GW> tetex-admin account, changes to the default texmf.cnf,
    GW> patching or renaming texconfig, etc.

Sorry, George, but I think you're on crack here.  Yes, many users
have their own installations of TeX on their PC, laptop, or what
have you.  But teTeX qua teTeX (i.e., not repackaged ala TeX Live
or Gerben Wierda's iInstaller packages) is usually going to be
installed on *nix machines, which are multiuser by default.

The reality of the situation is that 99.9999% of users aren't
going to have a clue about what all these new options that are
available to them.  Installing their own fonts?  Forget about it.

The commands should have been left the way they were -- as
system-level commands, with new commands with new names added for
bold and experienced users to run to handle their own
configurations.

By changing the names of the commands run at the system level, you
not only mess with the heads of experienced sysadmins, but you
also potentially break any scripts that might have relied on those
names (and their functionality) remaining consistent.  Keeping the
user interface consistent and backwards-compatible is generally
considered to be a good thing; you would think that would be
especially true for a TeX system given Knuth's insistence on newer
versions or potential replacements for TeX to produce the same
output as his original program, and the LaTeX team's commitment
to backwards compatibility for documents.

   Claire

-- 
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
  Claire Connelly                              [email protected] 
  Systems Administrator                          (909) 621-8754   
  Department of Mathematics                 Harvey Mudd College
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

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