This is the FAQ for teTeX -- a TeX distribution for UNIX compatible
systems. If you have questions about some points that remain unclear,
or if you think that things could be described better, just drop me
a line. My Email address:

        Thomas Esser <te@informatik.uni-hannover.de>


This article includes answers to:
  0) Where can I get the teTeX distribution?
  1) Is there a mailing list for teTeX?
  2) Now that I know that there is a mailing list: is there an archive
     of the list?
  3) I use PostScript fonts in my documents. When previewing with xdvi,
     MakeTeXPK sometimes hangs in gsftopk.
  4) I moved the binaries to a different location. Now, tex says:
     ``I can't find the default format file!''.
  5) I did not move the binaries, but I get the error:
     ``I can't find the default format file!''.
  6) I added some files in the texmf tree. But they are not found.
  7) When running some old dvi files through a dvi driver, I get warnings
     about checksum errors.
  8) What is the best method to get pk fonts in a batch job?
  9) What to do if I need the fonts for several modes?
 10) Can I share the teTeX directory tree between different platforms?
 11) After MakeTeXTPK and MakeTeXTFM sucessfully generate fonts, kpathesa
     complains and does not use the newly generated font.
 12) MakeTeXTFM runs Metafont with a mode that I do not like.
 13) Is there an easy way to copy .tfm or .pk fonts from a temporal directory
     to their standard directory below $TEXMF?
 14) How about adding program XYY or a macro package ABC to teTeX?
 15) Where should I keep my local stuff (programs, macros, ...)?
 16) How do I deinstall an old version of teTeX?
 17) How do I manage to execute the right binaries on each platform?
 18) Why does not install.sh call fontimport to copy the fonts from my
     previous teTeX installation?
 19) Under DOS, I used emTeX with LJ fonts. Which metafont mode should I use
     now with teTeX?
 20) Using the Shrink* Buttons in xdvi, I cannot get back to see the full
     page on the screen.
 21) I want to use amslatex, but there is no such command.
 22) teTeX doesn't work with my NEXTSTEP TeXview.app, what should I do ?
 23) Some things do not work properly. What should I do now?
 24) initex cannot include all the hyphenation patterns I need. It complains
     with "! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [pattern memory=NNNNN]."
 25) The scrollbars of xdvi do not make sense to me. How do I move backwards?
 26) Is teTeX freely redistributable?
 27) xdvi and dvips use the European A4 size as default papersize. How
     do I change this to make letterpaper the default?
 28) Only one texmf tree can be optimized via ls-R by now. Is there a
     "trick" to get around this restiction and speed up file searching
     even more?
 29) Why does ghostview display of my texts look so much worse than
     with xdvi?
 30) Metafont does not support the X display.

Answers:

0)  Where can I get the teTeX distribution?

    The primary site is in germany:
      ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de:/pub/comp/tex/teTeX

    Mirror sites:
      ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX
      ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX
      ftp://theory.uwinnipeg.ca/pub/tex/teTeX/
      ftp://ftp.duke.edu/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX
      ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/tex/ctan/systems/unix/teTeX/

    The following form provides a good help for downloading teTeX:
      http://theory.uwinnipeg.ca/search/tetex.html

1)  Is there a mailing list for teTeX?

    Yes. Tere is one list for discussion and one (moderated) list for
    announcements. The discussion list is
      tetex@informatik.uni-hannover.de
    and the announcement list is
      tetex-announce@informatik.uni-hannover.de
    To subscribe to one of these lists, send a message containing the line
        subscribe tetex
    or
        subscribe tetex-announce
    resp. to majordomo@informatik.uni-hannover.de . The majordomo server
    understands a few more commands. To get more help about our
    server, send a mail with the line 'help' in the body.
    Note that announcements are posted into both lists, so if you are
    interested in discussions and announcements, you only need to
    subscribe to the tetex list.

2)  Now that I know that there is a mailing list: is there an archive
    of the list?

    Yes. Just send a message with the line
        get tetex archive
    to majordomo@informatik.uni-hannover.de .

3)  I use PostScript fonts in my documents. When previewing with xdvi,
    MakeTeXPK sometimes hangs in gsftopk.

    There are known problems with early versions of gs3.XXX when using
    gsftopk. Solution: upgrade to gs3.33 or newer.

4)  I moved the binaries to a different location. Now, tex says:
    ``I can't find the default format file!''

    The modified Kpathsea library (a library to locate files on disks,
    written by Karl Berry) used in the teTeX distribution set the
    variables SELFAUTODIR and SELFAUTOPARENT relative to the location of
    the binary.
 
    SELFAUTODIR is the directory one level above the directory containing the
    binary and SELFAUTOPARENT is its parent directory.
 
    Example1: assuming xdvi is found in /usr/tex/bin/i486-linux/xdvi.
          => SELFAUTODIR:         /usr/tex/bin
          => SELFAUTOPARENT:      /usr/tex
 
    Example2: assuming xdvi is found in /usr/tex/bin/xdvi.
          => SELFAUTODIR:         /usr/tex
          => SELFAUTOPARENT:      /usr
 
    The file texmf.cnf is searched for in $SELFAUTODIR, $SELFAUTOPARENT,
    $TETEXDIR. If the file texmf.cnf if not found, set the TETEXDIR variable
    in your environment.
 
    But even if the texmf.cnf file is found, there may be an incorrect
    definition of TETEXDIR in the file. Check the following:

    In example1, you could use TETEXDIR=$SELFAUTOPARENT and in example2
    TETEXDIR=$SELFAUTODIR. A simpler setting for TETEXDIR could simply
    be TETEXDIR=/usr/tex in both cases. This can be convenient if you
    are not going to change the location of your teTeX tree.

5)  I did not move the binaries, but I get the error:
    ``I can't find the default format file!''.

    The name of the default format file is <program>.fmt, where
    <program> is the name of the binary you call (e.g. latex, tex).
    The directory where the format files are stored is $TEXMF/web2c.
    You can see the full search path using the command
	kpsetool -p fmt

    You should first look into these directories if the format file
    is there or not. If it is there, enter the following commands
    (use the name of the format file that is not found instead of
    my example "latex.fmt"):
	texconfig confall
	env KPATHSEA_DEBUG=-1 kpsetool -w fmt latex.fmt

    The first command could show you some configuration problems, e.g.
    a "wrong" PATH so that the "wrong" TeX binaries are found or some
    environment variables that you have set (in a way that confuses
    Kpathsea). The second command gives you a lot of debugging
    information. If you cannot find the reason for the problem by
    the given output, then send it to me in an e-mail.

    If the format files are not there, you need to create them.
    In case of latex.fmt or tex.fmt, just run
	texconfig init
    It will either create the format files for you, or you will get
    an error message that hopefully helps you to solve your problem.
    If you need another format file, please refer to the documentation
    of the package you want to use. See also anser to 21).
   
6)  I added some files in the texmf tree. But they are not found.
 
    You need to run texhash to update the ls-R file. See answer to 14)
    as well...

7)  When running some old dvi files through a dvi driver, I get warnings
    about checksum errors.

    The PostScript fonts are completely rearranged and the tfm files have
    different checksums. If you have the (La)TeX source of your document,
    you can get rid of the messages by running the sources through (La)TeX
    again.

8)  What is the best method to get pk fonts in a batch job?
 
    If you do have lots of dvi files (e.g. the documentation of teTeX),
    just run the allneeded script on them. If does run all those files
    through dvips (but output is send to /dev/null and not to a printer),
    and thus calculates all fonts that are needed to print these files
    (or preview with the same mode).

    Example:
         allneeded `kpsexpand '$TEXMF'`/doc >& /tmp/allneeded.log &

    The above command calculates the pk files for all the installed
    documentation in a background job.

    If you do not have many dvi files, you can use the allcm and/or
    allec scripts (allcm is for Computer Modern fonts, and allec for the
    ec fonts). You need to have LaTeX installed and the scripts calculate
    the fonts for all sizes and shapes that are used in typical LaTeX
    documents. allcm and allec produce lots of warnings. You can just
    ignore them.
 
9)  What to do if I need the fonts for several modes?

    You only need the modes together with a printer or for previewing. You
    should add a dvips configuration file for each printer using texconfig
    and use the most common printing mode for previewing.
    Then, any of the above scripts in 7) (allneeded, allcm, allec) can be
    given an argument of the form -P PRINTER (where PRINTER must be a known
    printer for dvips). This will calculate the fonts with the mode of
    the printer PRINTER.

    Example:
         For dvips I have configured the printer lp to have the mode
         ljfour. To get all ec fonts with ljfour mode, I would enter:
 
         allec -P lp

    If you do not have a dvips configuration file that corresponds to a
    specific mode, you can still enter the mode on the command line.
    Note however, that you should specify the corresponding resolution
    as well.

    Example:
         To get all fonts in cx mode (CanonCX mode is used by many 300dpi
         printers), give the command:

         allcm -D 300 -mode cx

    The flags -D and -mode are directly passed down to dvips.

10)  Can I share the teTeX directory tree between different platforms?

    Yes. The only platforms specific directory is $TETEXDIR/bin. If you
    want to use the same teTeX tree on different platforms, just put
    the binaries for each platform into a different subdirectory of
    $TETEXDIR/bin, e.g
         /usr/local/TeX/bin/i486-linux
         /usr/local/TeX/bin/sparc-solaris2.4
    You can then mount the whole $TETEXDIR tree on all machines and
    share almost all the files between them.

11) After MakeTeXTPK and MakeTeXTFM sucessfully generate fonts, kpathesa
    complains and does not use the newly generated font.

    If you happen to see output like this:
       ...
       Transcript written on ecti1000.log.
       /usr/local/teTeX/texmf/fonts/tfm/jknappen/ec/ecti1000.tfm
       kpathsea: Appending font creation commands to missfont.log.
       ...
    then your shell is propably very broken. This problem is known with
    the original bash 1.14.3 that has many problems with exit codes and
    trap handling. Try the following line:

        sh -c 'exit 1'; echo $?

    The buggy bash gives 127 as result. Fixes for these problems have been
    available e.g. from the internet newsgroup gnu.bash.bug, so not all
    instances of bash 1.14.3 are broken. Later versions of bash should not
    have that bug.

12) MakeTeXTFM runs Metafont with a mode that I do not like.

    Use texconfig and select a different mode as default mode.

13) Is there an easy way to copy .tfm or .pk fonts from a temporal directory
    to their standard directory below $TEXMF?

    Yes. Use the fontimport utility. If your want to turn off the "varfonts"
    feature for fontimport, set USE_VARFONTS to false in the environment.

    An easy method to move your fonts from, e.g. $VARFONTS to their
    "final" standard place is the following (can be used e.g. for a cron
    command):

        env USE_VARFONTS=false fontimport -d `kpsexpand '$VARFONTS'`; texhash

14) How about adding program XYY or a macro package ABC to teTeX?

    Well, there are some things to take into account:
        - I want to keep the size of the distribution small.
        - I have only a limited amount of time.
        - teTeX can be installed with a simple 'make world' on the most
          common UNIX platforms. Adding a new program could break the whole
          thing.
    Please think about this before asking me to add something. But if a
    really useful thing can be added without much effort and disk space
    usage, I may decide to do that.

    Another possibility is, that things are added to the contrib directory
    of teTeX.

15) Where should I keep my local stuff (programs, macros, ...)?

    I suggest to set up a local texmf tree for your local files. If you
    adopt the structure given by the standard tree, then you can set up
    the search paths very easily: just set TEXMFL and TEXMFS in texmf.cnf
    according to the comments given there.

16) How do I deinstall an old version of teTeX?

    Well, the simple answer is: rm -rf. But there may be some more
    things you want to do. You may keep a backup of your .pk fonts or of
    some local files you added to $TEXMF (see question 14, too) before
    you remove the old directory tree. Note, however that from teTeX 0.2
    to 0.3, there has been an update of the CM fonts (Knuth has updated
    the Metafont sources). So you may want to remove your old .pk files
    and have them recreated with the new sources.

    Another problem is, that there may be some symbolic links in
    /usr/local/{bin,man} (or a similar directory) after you remove the
    old teTeX directory tree and you may want to remove those links,
    too. A simple way to do this, is the following:

        cd /usr/local/bin
        sh -c 'for i in *; do test -s $i || echo $i; done'

    This loop echo'es all files with zero length, especially all stale
    symbolic links. If you want to remove all files that are shown by the
    command above, you can do this with:

        sh -c 'for i in *; do test -s $i || rm -f $i; done'

    You can repeat the above steps for other directories, as well 
    (e.g. /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man5).

17) How do I manage to execute the right binaries on each platform?

    Assuming that you have binaries for several platforms installed, your
    binaries are in $TETEXDIR/bin/PLATFORM. The first thing you can try is
    to set up your PATH with
        SYSDIR=`uname -m`-`uname -s`
        PATH=$TETEXDIR/bin/$SYSDIR:...
    You may need to rename the PLATFORM directories for this method.

    Another thing that may help is to include a local directory in your
    PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin) and create symbolic links for the binaries:
        linux# ln -sf /usr/local/teTeX/bin/i486-linux/* /usr/local/bin
        sun# ln -sf /usr/local/teTeX/bin/sparc-solaris2.4/* /usr/local/bin
        ...

    If you do not like the uname-method for your PATH and the symlink
    method, you may consider installing a small wrapper program that
    calls the programs for the right platform. Install the wrapper in
    $TETEXDIR/bin and create a symbolic link for each binary.

    Here an example:
	TETEXDIR=/usr/local/teTeX
	cd $TETEXDIR/bin
	vi platf_wrapper 	# see script below ...
	chmod +x platf_wrapper
	list=`ls i486-linux`	# get a list of programs. 
	for i in $list; do
		ln -s platf_wrapper $i
	done

     Tell your users to include $TETEXDIR/bin in their PATH. Make sure
     that TETEXDIR is either set to an absolute path (e.g. /usr/local/teTeX)
     or to $SELFAUTODIR (but not $SELFAUTOPARENT), since the programs are
     now found one directory level earlier.

     Now the sample wrapper. Customize, if you need:

       #!/bin/sh
       
       # the path to the directories with the subdirs for each platform
       BINDIR=/usr/local/teTeX/bin
       
       # export the variable. If we are called again,
       # we do not need to recalculate.
       export THIS_PLATFORM
       
       case "$THIS_PLATFORM" in
         "")
           case "`uname -s`" in
             Linux)
               THIS_PLATFORM=i486-linux;;
             SunOS)
               THIS_PLATFORM=sparc-solaris2.4;;
             IRIX)
               THIS_PLATFORM=mips-irix5.3;;
             *)
               echo "$0: fatal error: system not detected." >&2
               exit 1
           esac;;
       esac
       
       exec $BINDIR/$THIS_PLATFORM/`basename $0` "$@"

18) Why does not install.sh call fontimport to copy the fonts from my
    previous teTeX installation?

    Knuth has updated the Metafont sources. You get better .pk fonts if
    you recalculate them. See also the ansers 7) and 8).

19) Under DOS, I used emTeX with LJ fonts. Which metafont mode should I use
    now with teTeX?

    cx mode. It is common to most 300DPI laser printers. I.e. in
    texconfig|MODE, choose the line saying:

   	cx        Canon CX, SX, LBP-LX (300dpi)

20) Using the Shrink* Buttons in xdvi, I cannot get back to see the full
    page on the screen.

    You are propably using a too high resolution to see the full page
    with Shrink4. You can use your keyboard to select even higher shrink
    factors, e.g. 8 by typing: "8s" (without the quotes). If you insist
    on using the buttons and want the whole pagt to fit with Shrink4,
    then you better change xdvi's default mode using, e.g.
	texconfig mode cx
    This will give you a 300dpi mode. You can select any other mode as
    well, of course.

21) I want to use amslatex, but there is no such command.

    amslatex is obsolete. Use standard LaTeX and \usepackage{amsmath}.
    Do *not* \usepackage{amstex} in new documents (amstex is just for
    compatibility with old documents).

22) teTeX doesn't work with my NEXTSTEP TeXview.app, what should I do ?

    [ NOTE: there are some teTeX/NeXT specific files available via
    ftp and on the web. The URLs are:
        http://www.mathi.uni-heidelberg.de/~flight/stepTeX
    and in the directory teTeX/contrib/NeXT on the ftp servers where
    teTeX is available, e.g.:
    ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX/contrib/NeXT]

    NEXTSTEP's TeXview.app lacks kpathsearch support. Therefore it
        doesn't know how to find fonts spread around subdirectories, as in
        teTeX and TDS. Two possible solutions:

    a) Fetch a modified TeXview.app incorporating kpathsearch. Still in
           testing, but usable. The primary site for TeXview-kp is

       ftp://zarquon.mathi.uni-heidelberg.de/pub/NeXT/TeX

    b) [Not recommended!] `Flatten' teTeX's font directory
           layout. Done most easily by setting the "stripsupplier" and
           "striptypeface" options within texconfig's FONT/OPTIONS. Remove
           NeXTTeX's font directories and replace them by symlinks into teTeX
           (replace $TEXMF by the correct value for your installation):
        
       rm -rf /usr/lib/tex/fonts/pk /usr/lib/tex/fonts/tfm
       rm -rf /usr/lib/tex/fonts/vf /usr/lib/tex/ps
       cd $TEXMF/fonts/tfm ; mv */*/*.tfm .; rmdir */* * >/dev/null
       cd $TEXMF/fonts/vf ; mv */*/*.vf .; rmdir */* * >/dev/null
       cd $TEXMF/dvips; mv */* .; rmdir * >/dev/null
       ln -s $TEXMF/fonts/pk/nextscrn /usr/lib/tex/fonts/pk
       ln -s $TEXMF/fonts/tfm /usr/lib/tex/fonts/tfm
       ln -s $TEXMF/fonts/vf /usr/lib/tex/fonts/vf
       ln -s $TEXMF/dvips /usr/lib/tex/ps
       ln -s $TEXMF/dvips/config.dfaxhigh $TEXMF/dvips/config.fax
       texconfig font options stickydir stripsupplier striptypeface
       texhash

        If you seem to have NEXTSTEP-specific problems with teTeX, contact
        Gregor Hoffleit <flight@mathi.uni-heidelberg.de>

23) Some things do not work properly. What should I do now?

    First, make sure that your "environment" is ok and run
      texconfig confall
    This gives you an idea about which binaries are found along your
    PATH and if you have set some environment variables that might
    confuse teTeX's programs. If in doubt, unset all variables that
    are set in the last section of the output.

    If binaries other than teTeX's are found, then change the definition
    of your PATH. Put the directory containing teTeX's binaries earlier
    into your PATH, so that teTeX's binaries are found before any other
    TeX relared stuff.

    Then, your ls-R file might be out of date. Run
      texhash
    and see if your problem goes away.

    If your problem is due to old LaTeX209 files that do not work with
    LaTeX2e, then read $TEXMF/doc/latex/base/clsguide.dvi.

    If you cannot solve your problem by yourself, then
      a) if you think your problem is a general question about TeX/LaTeX:
	ask in some Newsgroup, such as comp.text.tex for help, or try to
        contact a local TeX user group.
      b) if you think there is a bug in a package contained in teTeX:
        contact the maintainer of the package with a good bug report. Add my
        Email adress in the Cc field of your bug report, if you want.
      c) if your problem seems to be teTeX specific (e.g. a problem with
        one of the binaries or shell-scripts), then report it to the
        teTeX mailing list (tetex@informatik.uni-hannover.de). Please
        provide the following information:

        * The version of teTeX you have. For example
                teTeX version is 0.4
        Indicate if you have any updates installed. (See $TEXMF/updates.dat).
 
        * The flavor of Unix you are running (Solaris, HP, Linux, etc), and
        its version. For example
                The system is Solaris 2.4

        * The output of the command 
                texconfig confall

        * Possibly a *short* TeX file you have problem running, and
        the whole output of `texcommand filename', say, until the
        first error.

24) initex cannot include all the hyphenation patterns I need. It complains
    with "! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [pattern memory=NNNNN]."

    Three possible solutions:
    - Maybe, you do not need the german patterns. These are enabled by
      default, since this is what the maintainer uses :-) If you do not
      need them, make sure, that the corresponding line is commented-out
      in language.dat.
    - You can try without texconfig and generate the (la)tex format
      files "by hand". Follow these steps:
        A) cd `kpsexpand '$TEXMF'/web2c`
        B) create a language.dat file with *some* (not all) of the languages,
           you need (e.g. english and german)
        C) run initex to create the format file you need, e.g. 
                initex latex.ltx
                initex tex.ini
                ...
        D) rename the format file, e.g.
                mv latex.fmt delatex.fmt
        E) repeat B) - D) until you have all format files you need
        F) create symbolic links to virtex for each of the format files
           that you have generated, e.g. 
                ln -s virtex delatex
           (do this in the directory where the teTeX binaries are)
    - Get the sources, edit web2c/tex/tex.ch (increase the trie_size). 
      Then follow INSTALL.src that comes with the sources.

25) The scrollbars of xdvi do not make sense to me. How do I move backwards?

    The scrollbars are what one calls Athena scrollbars. To scroll
    forward, click the left mouse button on the location you would want
    to scroll to the beginning of the displayed area. To scroll backward,
    click the right mouse button on where you want to scroll the beginning
    of the displayed area to. Click the middle mouse button for "dragging"
    the beginning of the displayed area around.

26) Is teTeX freely redistributable?

    Not all of it.  Parts of it may not be distributed for a profit.
    See the copyright notices on individual packages.

27) xdvi and dvips use the European A4 size as default papersize. How
    do I change this to make letterpaper the default?

    Simple answer: use texconfig.
	texconfig dvips paper letter
	texconfig xdvi us

28) Only one texmf tree can be optimized via ls-R by now. Is there a
    "trick" to get around this restiction and speed up file searching
    even more?

    Yes! There is the "standard" texmf tree, which is named $TEXMF.
    ls-R only supports this one tree. But, symlinks are followed, so
    you can do e.g.
      ln -s /my/second/texmf $TEXMF/second
      ln -s /my/third/texmf $TEXMF/third
    Then, make your local trees acessible in texmf.cnf e.g. as $TEXMF/second
    (but not as /my/second/texmf). Do not forget to run
      texhash
    to update ls-R.

29) Why does ghostview display of my texts look so much worse than
    with xdvi?

    xdvi does antialiasing.  If your version of ghostscript is
    sufficiently new, it has the x11alpha device.  Check for this with
      gs -h
    If it has, then putting
      Ghostview*arguments: -sDEVICE=x11alpha
    in your .Xdefault file (typically) will make ghostview use an
    anti-aliasing display as well, at the cost of display speed.

30) Metafont does not support the X display.
    It may be that your virmf binary is compiled without support for
    the X windows system. If there exists a virmf.X binary, that one
    has the missing X support you need. The easiest way to use it is
    to change the symbolic link mf -> virmf:
	rm mf; ln -s virmf.X mf
