This document was written for TeXLive 2023 in LFS 11.3 but probably is mostly applicable to other versions of LFS and to future versions of TeXLive as well.
This document and the script within I consider to be Public Domain but if you must have an actual license, Creative Commons CC0 works for me.
These instructions were tried on a very basic LFS 11.3 system with
just a few additions from BLFS, the important addition being
curl
which I chose to build against
GnuTLS
for TLS support. Building curl against OpenSSL (or LibreSSL) should also
work.
You should also have GnuPG before installing TeXLive 2023 for package verification (performed automatically by the TeXLive installer/updater).
These instructions also assume you have gone through the BLFS After LFS Configuration Issues section and have implemented The Bash Shell Startup Files section.
Other dependencies can be resolved after install as needed, but these three probably should be addressed sooner rather than later:
- Rationale
- TeXLive Mountpoint
- TeXLive User and Group
- Install TeXLive 2023
- Post Install Administration
- LFS Missing Libraries
- Ghostscript
- Ruby Dependency
- Wish Dependency
- SNOBOL4 Dependency
- Python Notes
- Text Editors
On an LFS system, software is generally installed from source. It is possible to build TeXLive from source but under some situations, it is impractical to do so.
TeXLive is a large collection of mostly architecture independent text files and fonts from CTAN---The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. TeXLive does include a small number of compiled binaries.
Given the massive amount of architecture independent files, it often makes sense to share a single TeXLive install between multiple operating systems on the same physical computer, between multiple operating systems on physically different computers all connected via the same LAN (via NFS), or by installing TeXLive to a dedicated portable hard drive that can be taken from place to place and connected to whichever computer the TeX author is currently using.
Furthermore, for people who use LaTeX a lot, it often makes sense to have multiple versions of TeXLive available. A document authored using TeXLive 2016 may not properly build in TeXLive 2023 without some time-consuming tweaks to the LaTeX code itself. If such a document needs a minor edit, it is better to have the version of TeXLive the LaTeX was originally authored under available than to have to potentially spend hours updating LaTeX code.
This document explains installing and maintaining a TeXLive system in LFS that can be shared with other operating systems, even on platforms other than GNU/Linux.
Traditionally, the /opt filesystem is used for third-party products
that are maintained and updated outside of the operating system package
manager.
The typical structure is /opt/<vendor>/<product> and TeXLive fits
that paradigm perfectly.
The default install location is actually within /usr/local however
/usr/local generally should be reserved for software built locally
from source that is not under the control of a package manager.
As the root user, create the directory /opt/texlive:
mkdir -p /opt/texlive
If you will be sharing the TeXLive install between multiple operating systems on the same hardware, you will want to either create a partition on an internal drive or alternatively create a partition on an external drive.
If you will be sharing the TeXLive install via NFS with other operating systems on your LAN, you probably should use a partition on an internal drive.
If you will be sharing the TeXLive install with other operating systems by use of an external drive, you should use an external drive. Even a USB thumb drive works.
If you are not sharing the TeXLive install then a separate partition is not necessary.
For a separate partition, I recommend at least 25 GiB but I prefer 64 GiB personally. TeXLive actually only needs about 7 GiB but having a larger partition allows you to have multiple versions installed at the same time.
I recommend using the ext2 filesystem. TeXLive does not really benefit
from a journaled file system and especially if you are sharing it with
operating systems other than GNU/Linux, it is usually easier to find
software solutions for mounting ext2 than for ext4 or other modern
GNU/Linux filesystems.
Once your partition has been properly created and formatted, go ahead
and mount it at the /opt/texlive mount point.
If TeXLive is on an external drive, you want the /etc/fstab to auto-mount
it when detected but not attempt to mount it when not present:
UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX /opt/texlive ext2 defaults,noauto 1 2
If TeXLive is on an internal drive, then you do want it to auto-mount during boot:
UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX /opt/texlive ext2 defaults 1 2
Obviously replace XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX with the
actual UUID (which you can find with the blkid command).
With the partition mounted, go ahead and create the following three directories:
mkdir -p /opt/texlive/{2023,texmf-local,tladmin}
The first is where TeXLive 2023 will be installed. The second is for local additions to the TeXLive system, such as additional fonts and macro packages like MathTime Pro 2. The third is a home directory for the TeXLive administrative user. Keeping the home directory for that user on the same partition as the TeXLive install allows you to easily administrate the install from any Unix operating system the partition is mounted on---should you choose to do so.
The next thing to do is create a texlive user and group. The purpose
of the group is two-fold:
- It provides a group for the texlive administrator.
- It provides a group for users of the texlive system.
When TeXLive is available, any user on the system can use it by simply adjusting their PATH environmental variable. For users that want to use the TeXLive system, it is easier if the environmental variables are already set up for them when they log in.
By adding users who want to use the TeXLive system to the texlive
group, those users can automatically have their environmental variables
(PATH, INFOPATH, MANPATH) adjusted to use the TeXLive system while other
user accounts (including system users and daemons) that do not need
to use the TeXLive system do not have their environmental variables
adjusted.
The purpose of the texlive user is to have an otherwise unprivileged
user account that installs and administrates the TeXLive system.
When sharing a TeXLive install, each Unix system should have both the
texlive user and group and they should have the same user-id and
group-id, at least if you wish to be able to be able to also administrate
the TeXLive system from any Unix system using the partition.
The UID/GID I personally use is 450 for both. The reason I chose
450 is because it is well above 100 (under 100 is usually used
for system users and daemons) yet below 500. Most Unix systems today
start user accounts at 1000 but some use 500 as the first personal
account UID/GID, so I chose 450 to specifically be below that.
When creating the texlive user, make sure to set the home directory
to /opt/texlive/tladmin and the shell to /bin/bash (or to /usr/bin/bash
on systems that put bash in /usr/bin).
I personally do not set a password for the texlive user. You can
become the texlive user by first logging in to the root account
and then issuing the following command:
su - texlive
If you have sudo
installed with the default BLFS configuration, then users in the
wheel group can become the texlive user with the following command:
sudo su - texlive
That is my preferred method.
Note that you only need to become the texlive user to administer the
system. Usually that means once a month or so, installing updates. Or
whenever you think you come across a bug, to see if it is already fixed
before reporting it.
As the root user, copy the relevant /etc/skel files into the /opt/texlive/tladmin
directory:
cp /etc/skel/{.bash_logout,.bash_profile,.bashrc} /opt/texlive/tladmin/
Finally, set the correct permissions:
chown -R texlive:texlive /opt/texlive/tladmin
chown texlive:texlive /opt/texlive/{2023,texmf-local}
You are now ready to install TeXLive 2023.
To install TeXLive 2023, first become the texlive user:
sudo su - texlive
As the texlive user, retrieve the installer:
TMPDIR="`mktemp --tmpdir -d tlive-XXXXXXXXXXXX`"
pushd ${TMPDIR}
curl -L -O https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl-unx.tar.gz
Note the -L option is necessary because it will redirect you to a mirror.
Unpack the archive, enter the installer directory, and install it:
tar -zxf install-tl-unx.tar.gz
cd install-tl-20*
/usr/bin/perl ./install-tl \
--texdir="/opt/texlive/2023" \
--texmflocal="/opt/texlive/texmf-local" \
--no-interaction
There are some other options (such as default paper size) but those can be set after install. Normally I like to set paper size in the document itself however ff you plan to use TeXLive to build documentation that comes with source packages in LFS/BLFS, you probably want to set the default paper size to the size of paper your printer uses.
That is covered in the Paper Size section.
The install will likely take an hour or so, depending upon the speed of the mirror used for the install.
Once installed, remove the temporary install directory:
popd
# optionally - since in /tmp it should be deleted automatically eventually
rm -rf ${TMPDIR}
The following script is what I use to set up the various environmental
variables for TeXLive in LFS. It is an adaptation of a script I first
wrote for use in CentOS for TeXLive 2014, the adaptation being I used
the pathappend function from the BLFS bash /etc/profile script.
See The Bash Shell Startup Files
in the BLFS book.
This script only sets up the path for non-root users of the texlive
group, and it does not need to be updated when you update TeXLive
itself to a new version, it always adjusts to the newest version
of TeXLive installed.
# /etc/profile.d/texlive.sh - set *PATH variables for TeXLive
checkuser () {
### returns 0 only for non-root members of texlive group
if [ "`id -u`" == "0" ]; then
return 1
fi
TLGID="`id -g texlive`" 2> /dev/null
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
return 1
fi
for id in `id -G`; do
if [ "${id}" == "${TLGID}" ]; then
return 0
fi
done
return 1
}
tlversion () {
### returns 0 only if it finds an ls-R in texmf-dist
### only checks for versions within last seven years.
YYYY=`date +%Y`
for n in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do
DIR="`echo "${YYYY} - ${n}" |bc`"
if [ -f /opt/texlive/${DIR}/texmf-dist/ls-R ]; then
printf ${DIR}
return 0
fi
done
return 1
}
tlplatform () {
HARDWARE="`uname -m`"
OS="`uname -o`"
case "${OS}" in
GNU/Linux)
case "${HARDWARE}" in
x86_64)
printf "x86_64-linux"
;;
arm64)
printf "aarch64-linux"
;;
i386 | i486 | i586 | i686)
printf "i386-linux"
;;
*)
# hardware not (yet) supported by script
return 1
;;
esac
;;
*)
# OS not (yet) supported by script
return 1
;;
esac
return 0
}
if checkuser; then
TLPLATFORM="`tlplatform`"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
TLIVEV="`tlversion`"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
# pathappend defined in BLFS/YJL /etc/profile
pathappend /opt/texlive/${TLIVEV}/bin/${TLPLATFORM}
pathappend /opt/texlive/${TLIVEV}/texmf-dist/doc/info INFOPATH
pathappend /opt/texlive/${TLIVEV}/texmf-dist/doc/man MANPATH
fi
fi
fi
# End /etc/profile.d/texlive.sh
With that file installed within /etc/profile.d LFS should automatically
set up the environmental variables for users within the texlive group
to use the TeXLive system. At least for users who use bash as their
login shell.
An equivalent for tcsh has not (yet) been written.
Note to use this method for setting up the environmental variables on
other GNU/Linux distributions (or other operating systems) you will
likely have to port it. CentOS/Fedora for example do not define the
pathappend function, on Linux distributions that ship with a packaged
(often old) TeXLive you want the TeXLive 2023 paths at the beginning,
and on macOS the appropriate place to mount the partition is probably
/usr/local/opt/texlive rather than /opt/texlive. Or maybe
/Volumes/texlive. Just pick one... 😜
If you would prefer to have the texlive environmental variables set
for every login user (except root) without needing to put every
login user in the texlive group, just have the checkuser () function
return 0 for the texlive user and for any user with a UID greater
than 999.
I highly recommend against modifying the environmental variables for the root user, or for system/daemon users, for security reasons.
Periodically it is a good idea to apply updates to the TeXLive system.
When the tlmgr command itself needs an update, it generally has to
be updated by itself before any other packages can be updated.
To keep my system up to date, I have the following shell script in
/opt/texlive/tladmin and run it as the texlive user about once a
month, or whenever I think about it:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Begin update-tl.sh
#
tlmgr update --self
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
tlmgr update --all
fi
# End update-tl.sh
I use #!/usr/bin/env bash as the shebang because I do not know what
operating system I might want to run it from, or where that operating
system has bash installed.
If you have any fonts you want to use with TeXLive or TeX packages that
are not part of TeXLive, put them in the /opt/texlive/texmf-local
tree and then as the texlive user, run the command texhash to update
the ls-R file in texmf-local so that TeXLive knows where to find the
files.
If any of the fonts need a fontmap file enabled, use the updmap-sys
variant of updmap to enable them so that they are enabled for all
users regardless of which operating system has the TeXLive partition
mounted.
By default, a TeXLive install will use the A4 paper size for documents that do not specify a paper size.
Generally it is a good idea to always set the intended paper size in your project but for projects intended to be compiled anywhere---as is the case with open source software documentation---it is better not to specify the paper size so that the documentation can be built to match the paper size it is most likely to be printed on.
If you are in the United States and would prefer U.S. Letter to A4 when the document does not specify the paper size, run the following command:
tlmgr paper letter
If you need to change it back to A4:
tlmgr paper a4
By default, the TeXLive installer only installs binaries for one platform. If you need support for another platform, you can install support for an additional platform.
To see all available platform options as well as which platforms are already installed, use the command:
tlmgr platform list
To add an available platform, use tlmgr add <platform>. For example,
to add support for macOS so that you can share the TeXLive install with
macOS, you would run the command:
tlmgr platform add universal-darwin
If you need to remove a platform you are no longer using, then you can
use the same command to add the platform, substituting remove in
place of add.
Most people can skip this.
TeXLive ships with the metric compatible URW++ clones of the Adobe Base35 Postscript Level 2 fonts.
If you happen to have the genuine Adobe Base35 fonts installed in the
proper place within your texmf-local tree:
texmf-local/fonts/type1/adobe/base35/
Then you can configure TeXLive to use the genuine Adobe fonts. If they are named using the "berry" names (e.g. phvbo8an.pfb):
updmap-sys --setoption LW35 ADOBEkb
On the other hand if they have the Adobe vendor file names
(e.g. hvnbo___.pfb):
updmap-sys --setoption LW35 ADOBE
Visually, almost no one can tell the difference between the free URW++ clones and the genuine Adobe fonts, but if you happen to have the genuine Adobe fonts you might as well use them for projects that call the Base35 postscript fonts.
Modern LaTeX projects that want to use fonts of the Base35 look and feel generally should use the TeX Gyre OpenType fonts instead, as they have much better glyph coverage, but some macro packages which have an internal need to typeset characters (such as the packages for generating barcodes) will still specify the actual Base35 fonts internally for backwards compatibility, and some open source software with LaTeX documentation uses the Base35 fonts.
If you are not writing for a commercial publication, the free math fonts that are part of TeXLive almost certainly meet your needs. See CTAN Maths Font.
Commercial publications however often have an established work-flow and like to specify what macro packages and fonts you are allowed to use in order to be allowed to make them money.
Some publications will require you to use
MathTime Pro 2 for your math font
(usually in combination with times.sty as your main body font)
and other publications will require you use the
Lucida Fonts.
If you are writing for such a publication, the proper place to install
the files is within the /opt/texlive/texmf-local tree.
Both packages come with install instructions but in both cases I often see some users confused.
- First put the files in their proper place within the
texmf-localtree. - Then as the
texliveuser run thetexhashcommand. - then as the
texliveuser run theupdmap-sysvariant of theupdmapcommand when enabling the font map file. Otherwise the fonts will not be system-wide enabled for all users.
When you upgrade to a new version of TeXLive, you do not need to
re-install those packages, but you will need to re-run the appropriate
updmap-sys command to re-enable the needed map file in the new version
of TeXLive.
With a bare-bones LFS install, the following TeXLive 2023 installed binaries have missing shared library dependencies.
Note that without these libraries installed, I was able to use TeXLive 2023 within LFS 11.3 to compile TeX projects originally authored for LuaLaTeX compilation without any problems.
Most if not all of the missing shared library dependencies will be met once an LFS/BLFS 11.3 system has the X11 windowing system installed.
This is probably the most important component of TeXLive to support even if you do not use it yourself, it is quite likely that at some point you will need to compile a LaTeX document written for XeLaTeX if you are involved at all in the TeX world.
The missing libraries after a bare-bones LFS install are:
- libfontconfig.so.1
- libfreetype.so.6
Relevant BLFS packages:
The mf program is metafont and is used to generate TeX native fonts.
In this day in age, generally vector fonts (Type 1, TrueType, OpenType)
are used for new LaTeX projects and at least with LuaLaTeX, a bare-bones
LFS install has what is needed to deal with those. However sometimes older
LaTeX projects will want metafont available.
The missing libraries after a bare-bones LFS install are:
- libSM.so.6
- libICE.so.6
- libXext.so.6
- libX11.so.6
Most users probably do not need this to work.
The asy command invokes a script-based vector graphics language for
generating technical drawings. It can be used to create very high
quality figures. At this point, most high quality figures are actually
generated as postscript or PDF images using programs outside of the
TeXLive system, but it is possible you may need this command to work
especially if you are working with older TeX projects.
The missing libraries after a bare-bones LFS install are:
- libGLX.so.0
- libglut.so.3
- libGL.so.1
If you need Asymptote, I recommend building it independently of TeXLive. See BLFS Asymptote.
You can then remove the binary from TeXLive. As the texlive user:
tlmgr remove asymptote.x86_64-linux --no-depends-at-all
However understand that doing so will mean asy may not be available
to other x86_64-linux operating systems unless they too have the binary
installed separate from TeXLive.
In the old days, the standard way to use a TeX system was to generate a DVI file that could then be sent to be printed or rendered by a device with an appropriate DVI driver.
When generating a postscript file, one would then use the program dvips
to create a postscript file from the DVI file.
DVI files are rarely generated now, but when they are generated you may
want the xdvi-xaw program to view the DVI file on your display before
it is printed or further processed into something else.
The missing libraries after a bare-bones LFS install are:
- libXaw.so.7
- libXmu.so.6
- libXt.so.6
- libSM.so.6
- libICE.so.6
- libXext.so.6
- libXpm.so.4
- libX11.so.6
Those two programs are not needed on GNU/Linux.
The missing library if you want them to work anyway is:
- libX11.so.6
Even though modern TeX engines can output directly to PDF and ghostscript no longer plays the same role in a TeX work-flow that it used to play, you will at some point find yourself needing to install Ghostscript.
A few executable scripts depend upon Ruby. If you need those scripts, install Ruby.
A few executable scripts depend upon wish which is provided by Tk.
If you need those scripts, install
Tk.
Note that Tk requires the X11 system.
A single script, texaccents, requires snobol4. It does not seem to
be part of BLFS but can be found at https://www.regressive.org/snobol4/csnobol4/curr/ .
Python2 is officially deprecated.
Unfortunately, many GNU/Linux distributions have a practice of providing
/usr/bin/python as a symbolic link to the system Python binary, whether
it is Python 2 or Python 3.
Unfortunately many scripts that use either /usr/bin/python or
/usr/bin/env python instead of explicitly calling python2
or python3 do not work with both versions.
It appears in TeXLive that the TeX maintainers have cleaned up that mess
within TeXLive. Many scripts do explicitly call python3 or python2
and those that do not explicitly call a versioned python do in fact
work with either, possibly with one exception.
A small handful of scripts use the following un-versioned shebang:
#!/usr/bin/env python
The list:
- ebong{,.py}
- latex-papersize{,.py}
- lily-glyph-commands{,.py}
- lily-image-commands{,.py}
- lily-rebuild-pdfs{,.py}
- lilyglyphs-common.py
- {,de}pythontex{,.py}
- pythontex_2to3.py
- pythontex_install.py
- texliveonfly{,.py}
An even smaller handful of scripts use the following un-versioned shebang:
#!/usr/bin/python
The list:
- pyMergeChanges.py
- de-macro
Python scripts without a .py suffix are in the architecture dependent
bin/[arch] directory and have an identical script with a suffix in the
texmf/scripts
directory.
The de-macro script is unique in that it does not have a .py suffix
in the version within the texmf/scripts directory.
The system Python for LFS 11.3 is Python 3 but LFS does not create a
/usr/bin/python symbolic link. If you need any of these Python scripts
in your LaTeX work-flow, you have to have it. Modifying the scripts
themselves to call python3 will get undone whenever you update TeXLive.
As the root user:
ln -svf python3.11 /usr/bin/python
A summary of the Python scripts that call an un-versioned python:
I could not find any reference to whether or not this script has been tested with Python 3 but it looks like it should work to me.
It is used as a helper for writing Bengali in Rapid Roman Format, I have no way to test whether it works the same in Python 3 as it does in Python 2 but it looks to me like it should work.
The lilyglyphs Python scripts have been compatible with Python 3
since September 30, 2020. See the
Lilyglyph CTAN Announcement.
The pythontex Python scripts that do not use a version specific shebang
simply detect the system python so that scripts with either a python2
or a python3 versioned shebang can be called.
This script is useless when a full TeXLive install was performed, the sole purpose of that script is to download TeXLive packages that are needed but not present in the local install.
The comments in the script itself specifies it works with either Python2 or Python3.
This script specifies that it only works with Python 3. It really
should thus have a #!/usr/bin/python3 or #!/usr/bin/env python3
shebang but it does not.
This script specifies that it works with either Python 2 or Python 3.
To compose your LaTeX projects, you need a text editor you know how to use, preferably one with LaTeX syntax highlighting.
When using UTF-8 (as you should for anything new), the text editor should not insert a BOM (Byte Order Mark) at the beginning of the document.
Allegedly a BOM is no longer a problem in TeXLive since TeXLive 2018 but I have not verified that always is the case, and it probably is not the case for some commercial TeX distributions that publishers often use.
Use a text editor that does not insert a BOM.
The vim editor that is part of LFS is sufficient but if you do a lot
of work in LaTeX it may be worth your time to learn how to use
GNU Emacs.
For a GUI editor, I really like LaTeXila but the project first was integrated in GNOME3 as GNOME-LaTeX and then it appears the original author has left or been pushed out.
I just use LaTeXila 3.26.1 and do not bother updating it, I am not a fan of GNOME 3.
LaTeXila 3.26.1 builds and works well in MATE. Unfortunately I do not know of a current mirror that still hosts the LaTeXila tarballs but it can be found in the old Fedora source RPMs.
To share TeXLive as installed here with macOS, you need to be able to
mount ext2 filesystems. There are several solutions, pick one.
Note that MacTeX is just TeXLive with a few extra GUI programs that I personally found to be useless. On macOS for a text editor, I highly recommend using BBEdit. The free version works well with LaTeX but BBEdit is worth paying for.
It is possible to run TeXLive on Windows but it is possible the Windows installer is actually required.
Most people I know in the LaTeX world who use Windows just use MiKTeX on Windows, and generally use the Notepad++ text editor.
When I have had to use Windows, any projects I was working on in TeXLive had no problems compiling in MiKTeX, MiKTeX is highly compatible with TeXLive since both use CTAN for their macro packages. Just be sure that Notepad++ uses Unix line breaks to avoid projects with mixed line breaks.
A proper UTF-8 text editor without a BOM (Byte Order Mark) is recommended. Do not try to use Windows Notepad, it always adds a BOM. Use Notepad++ configured to save as UTF-8 without the BOM.