TeX Distributions
Revision as of 16:14, 1 January 2006 by Mojca Miklavec (talk | contribs) (→alternative TeX processors: additional row: is there ConTeXt support?)
< Installation hints | Update Hints | Linux Installation >
Historically there were a lot of different TeX distributions. Nowadays there are only a few wide spread. We mention only those that are free and support ConTeXt:
| Name | OS | Homepage | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| TeX Live | a lot | tug.org/texlive | web2c, based on teTeX; experimental installer on Windows |
| teTeX | Linux, Unix | tug.org/tetex | web2c |
| fpTeX | Win32 | xemtex | not maintained any more, see XEmTeX |
| XEmTeX | Win | xemtex | |
| MikTeX | Win | miktex.org | with GUI |
| proTeXt | Win | tug.org/protext | based on MikTeX, bundled with TeX Live |
| gwTeX | MacOS X | rna.nl | web2c, based on TeX Live; comfortable install and update GUI ("i-Installer") |
| minimal ConTeXt | Win, Lin, Mac | pragma-ade.com | web2c |
- web2c is a common base for TeX distributions, see tug.org/web2c. It uses the kpathsea tool and its ls-R database for file searches.
web2c hints
- use mktexlsr (same as texhash) to rebuild the file database after every install or change!
- Beware, older web2c distributions keep ConTeXt’s (Perl/Ruby) scripts at .../context/perltk, newer at .../scripts/Perl/context! Make sure to delete the older ones! See also Update Hints
MikTeX hints
- MikTeX has a "rebuild database" menu entry; use it after every install or change!
- You should enable write18 in miktex.ini (MikTeX's counterpart to texmf.cnf) to get MetaPost support working.
- See MikTeX Problems for more.
alternative TeX processors
TeX the program writes only DVI output; with ConTeXt we normally use pdfeTeX, a merger of eTeX and pdfTeX – it's nowadays probably the most used TeX processor and part of all(?) distributions. But there are more...
| Name | OS | ConTeXt | Homepage | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pdf(e)TeX | "all" | Yes | pdftex.org | latest version at freshmeat or sarovar |
| MetaTeX | POSIX | No | metatex.org | tries to provide a fast pdfTeX, MetaPost etc. and kpathsea replacement as C libraries (pre-alpha state) |
| NTS | Java | No | CTAN | OO re-implementation of TeX in Java as a base for further enhancements; discontinued, see ExTeX |
| ExTeX | Java | No | extex.org | merger of NTS with eTeX, pdfTeX and Omega (pre-alpha state) |
| Aleph | "all"? | Yes | CTAN | Omega/eTeX merge (former eOmega) by Giuseppe Bilotta (beta state) |
| XeTeX | MacOS X | Yes | sil.org | uses Mac special features; bidirectional typesetting; supported by ConTeXt since Context 2004.10.07 |
