Managing multiple TeXLive installations

[Mojca Miklavec]

On 27 February 2016 at 00:21, Jerry wrote:
> I am struggling with two different installations of TeXLive.
>
> One is a 2013 version from TUG which was a binary installed mostly into /usr/local/texlive but with GUI apps in /Applications/TeX/.

2013 is relatively old.

> The other is MacPorts 2015 version...
>
> $ port installed *texlive*
> The following ports are currently installed:
>   texlive-basic @30847_0+doc
>   texlive-basic @34245_0+doc
>   texlive-basic @37485_0+doc (active)
>   texlive-bin @2013_5+x11
>   texlive-bin @2014_1+x11
>   texlive-bin @2014_9+x11
>   texlive-bin @2015_8+x11 (active)
>   texlive-common @2013_0
>   texlive-common @2014_0
>   texlive-common @2015_0 (active)
>   texlive-fonts-recommended @36916_0+doc (active)
>   texlive-latex @30738_0+doc
>   texlive-latex @34192_0+doc
>   texlive-latex @37361_0+doc (active)
>
> I want to simplify and save space and reduce the possibility of conflicts.

You can also run "sudo port uninstall inactive" or "sudo port unintall
inactive and 'texlive*'" to save extra space. I just wanted to add
that I have multiple installations of TeX (MacTeX 2014, 2015), TeXLive
from MacPorts, a standalone ConTeXt installation, ...

In System Preferences you most likely have an icon for "TeX
Distribution". It is possible that you can select MacPorts from there
(I'm not sure about the exact history of when MacPorts was
added/removed) and then all the nice GUI apps would automatically
switch to using TeX Live from MacPorts as well (it's mostly just a
symlink /usr/texbin and some other link on 10.11, but if you have
version 2013, it's probably /usr/texbin).

Other than that it all depends on PATH settings. Whatever
"latex/pdftex/kpsewhich/..." comes first in PATH will also be used.
I'm not sure how exactly LyX deals with paths though because it's not
a command-line program.

> However, the 2013 TUG version installed the very nice collection of GUI apps in /Applications/TeX which I would like to use especially BibDesk. When I look in /Applications/MacPorts there are no corresponding programs.

Many programs are standalone apps that are not really part of TeX
Live, but are packaged for convenience by the person who creates
MacTeX.

You can download BibDesk from http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/. And
given that the sources are available, it should be feasible to create
a package in MacPorts as well. The same is true for most other apps
that come bundled with MacTeX.

> Can I delete /usr/local/texlive/2013 and keep the GUI apps in /Applications/TeX and if so, how would I keep the GUIs updated?

Sure. Just do "sudo rm -rf /usr/local/texlive/2013" (or perhaps "sudo
mv /usr/local/texlive /usr/local/texlive-backup"). You will probably
also want to remove /usr/texbin from PATH or perhaps point /usr/texbin
to /opt/local/bin.

After that you might need to adjust paths in individual programs. I
don't use BibDesk, so I'm not sure what has to be done there, but in
case that it actually needs TeX and doesn't just output .bib files I'm
sure there exists some setting to point it to the desired version of
TeX.

> Or is there a way to get the GUI apps to be installed by MacPorts, presumably into /Applications/MacPorts? I don't see a GUI variant.

There is no +gui variant or will ever be one. Someone would have to
prepare build rules for these individual programs. There are some
attempts like this one:
    https://trac.macports.org/ticket/16055
but someone motivated would have to step in to package all of them.

Mojca