James Sparenberg wrote: [alternate install location] > No easy method no. On the other hand one of the first things a deb > installer does is check to see if it can install. (meaning it has > enough space) and then bomb out if it doesn't. That'll do nicely. > I might be possible to unpack the deb and do some hand manipulation > (also involves a chicken bone and eye of newt at midnight.) but no > easy way I know of. That's not a problem. I'm accustomed to passing dead chickens over the keyboard, and I know the "right" directory structure (TDS) and where to put it. > Problem here is that the creators of deb/rpm/etc haved intentionally > pushed this function to the side to maintain ease of use for the > greatest number of users. Those of us who dare try the chicken bone > ritual are on our own. Absolutely. It's the one area where the otherwise intolerable Windows installation nov^H^H^Hwizards score: they *ask* where you want it put, which is precisely what most Unix users *don't* want to have to bother with. The problem only really arises on systems with very restricted internal (/usr/share, /usr/local) space (PDAs) but with potentially large volumes off to one side like /media. Perhaps it's time to suggest that .debs could provide installation parameters like filetree: texmf default-install-location: /usr/share alternate-install-location: /usr/local/share alternate-install-location: /mnt/* alternate-install-location: /media/* (the * meaning "prompt user"). Purists will hate the idea of initiating a dialog during an install, but for applications which have a very large data footprint like TeX, I think it's justifiable. > oh and you can't execute a binary from the mmc cards by default either. File > system mount thing. Ah. But presumably you can $ ln -s /media/disk1/texmf/bin/latex /usr/local/bin/ (it certainly worked on the Zaurus). ///Peter
