HMC Mathematics Computing Weblog

I have upgraded ponder to CentOS 5, bringing it into line with the other Linux workstations the department maintains. There shouldn't be any dramatic changes between CentOS 3 and CentOS 5, except that the current versions of various commercial software (notably MATLAB) will now run on ponder.

There are almost certainly some differences between the packages loaded on the current system and those on the old system; should you encounter a missing package that you need, let me know and I'll try to get it installed.

I've made various changes to the TeX set up over the last couple of weeks.

TeX Live 2009 and the Shared TEXMF Tree

The big change is that I've pushed TeX Live 2009 out as the current TeX system on the Linux and Mac OS X systems. We had been running TeX Live 2008 until the end of the semester.

I have also changed the shared TEXMF tree to use /shared/local/texlive/texmf-local rather than the old location (/shared/local/share/texmf), which is no longer accessible. The latest version of local packages and classes will now be available from /shared/local/texlive/texmf-local.

TeX Live 2010 Pretest

I am also maintaining an install of the TeX Live 2010 pretest distribution (Release Notes). TL 2010 is under active development, so at any given time it might have problems that you won't see in TL 2009. The developers welcome bug reports, but if you find a problem, please let me know before you file a report. I will update the distribution to make sure we have the latest version and let you know; you can then try your document again to see if the problem still exists.

TL 2010 is aiming for a code freeze in July. I'm not yet sure whether it will be ready for us to use in the fall semester, but I have my fingers crossed. If it is ready, I will make it the default on the Linux systems and also update the local installs on our Macs.

If you want to try TeX Live 2010 (on Linux or Mac systems), you can add the path to the binaries to the head of your PATH. I recommend that you do not add the path in your startup files so that you will get a known working version of TeX by default and get back to it by logging out and back in (or by closing the terminal window where you set the PATH).

You'll need to set the right architecture to make things work; I recommend you run one of the following commands to set the PATH correctly:

For the tcsh or csh:

setenv PATH /shared/local/texlive/2010/bin/`uname -i`-linux:$PATH

For bash, sh, zsh, or other Bourne/Korn shells:

export PATH="/shared/local/texlive/2010/bin/`uname -i`-linux:$PATH"

[uname -i will expand to the appropriate architecture for the machine you're logged into; either i386 (for 32-bit machines) or x86_64 (for 64-bit machines).]

For Macs, for the tcsh or csh:

setenv PATH /shared/local/texlive/2010/bin/universal-darwin:$PATH

For bash, sh, zsh, or other Bourne/Korn shells:

export PATH="/shared/local/texlive/2010/bin/universal-darwin:$PATH"

Note that setting your PATH in this way will not affect the PATH used by applications such as TeXShop, only the Terminal session in which you set it. You can set the path in the Engine tab of the TeXShop Preferences dialog, and reset your preferences to defaults using the drop-down menu in the bottom-left corner of that dialog. (Resetting your preferences using this method may change other preferences besides the paths-be sure to check.)