Ubuntu
texlive-base package

Replace latex 2009 with latex 2011

Asked by Chris

I had texlive-full package installed and every time I opened a terminal I typed the command "latex" and a "This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)" editor appeared...so far so good. A couple days before I wanted to install latex 2011, so I deleted the old latex using the command "sudo apt-get autoremove latex*". Then I installed the new latex and when I open a terminal and type "latex" I get the following message :

The program 'latex' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-base

After getting this message I installed the texlive-latex-base package and when I typed "latex" in the terminal, the old "This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)" editor appeared.

How can I run latex 2011 using the command "latex" in terminal and get rid of the old one?

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mycae (mycae) said : 		#1

latex 2011 has not yet been packaged in the Debian archive. If you want to install it, you will need to uninstall latex 2009 (and then pin to avoid an update reverting your efforts) , then follow the instructions for compilation on the latex website to do a source install.

Note that pinning latex may cause serious package installation problems, as latex is used in almost every -doc subpackage out there.

Can you provide any background to why you want to do this? Maybe there is an alternative/easier solution?

[1]https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PinningHowto

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Chris (christosg) said : 		#2

I'm in the support team of my university and one of my profs insisted on doing so...the thing is that he wants latex 2011 to work exactly like latex 2009 and he wanted the new version because he heard that it has some bugs fixed or something like that...

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mycae (mycae) said : 		#3

Humm, thats an issue.

Well its a substantial support requirement for some unspecified bug that you are not sure affects you - it could be counter-productive to maintain your own install.

You are basically upgrading a core component which may have significant consequences for downstream latex using-packages. It will probably *install* fine via the texlive shell script, but you might find weird bugs down the track because (for example) a feature was deprecated in favour of a new system (like epsf was).

You can read some comments from the maintainer here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/texlive-base/+bug/712521

If you need to support multiple computers, then I'd probably recommend creating a custom .deb package, if you know how. Alternatively try modifying the texlive source package (apt-get source texlive-full ?) to use the newer tarball; this may be quite a substantial effort, if you are unfamiliar with packaging.

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Chris (christosg) said : 		#4

Thank you for your assistance...one last question.If I try to update latex, will the update change the version of latex or will it just update the current version?

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mycae (mycae) said : 		#5

If you update latex using the shell script provided in 2011, then you may overwrite, or place in a directory with higher priority, the latex installed by your package manager.

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