============================================================ Installation instructions for VTeX/Lnx 7.530 ============================================================ Walter Schmidt 2002-04-02 Contents -------- What is VTeX/Lnx? Prerequisites Required files Installing VTeX/Lnx Deleting obsolete files Configuring VTeX/Lnx Creating the LaTeX format file Creating the plain TeX format file Documentation Known Bugs Support Legal stuff What is VTeX/Lnx? ----------------- VTeX/Lnx is a TeX program for Linux(x86) that generates PDF or PostScript output immediately from the TeX source file. It comes with a complete LaTeX system, including many additional packages and fonts, as well as the Bibtex and Makeindex programs. A basic plain TeX system is also included. In contrast to traditional TeX systems, no intermediate DVI files are generated, no "dvi driver programs" are required, and there is no need to care for their -- sometimes problematic -- setup. In contrast to pdfTeX, VTeX includes a full PostScript interpreter, this inclusion of EPS images as well as inline PostScript programming, i.e. PSTricks, psfrag etc. are fully supported, The common PostScript and PDF viewers GSView and Acrobat Reader can be used for (pre)viewing and printing. VTeXs output files are immediately suitable for public distribution, e.g., over the WWW, since PostScript and PDF are standardized document formats -- as opposed to the TeX-specific DVI format. Note that PDF files created by VTeX version 7.30 and above do not conflict with Acrobat Reader 5. Prerequisites ------------- * VTeX/Lnx requires Linux 86 and at least 16Mb of physical memory. * VTeX/Lnx is an ELF executable requiring the "glibc" libraries. * You must have installed Ghostscript, so as to provide a PostScript and PDF reader; furthermore, the Type1 fonts that are part of the Ghostscript distribution, will be used by VTeX, too. * It is highly recommended to provide also Acrobat Reader, because this is the "canonical" PDF reader, and because certain hypertext features of the PDF format are not supported by Ghostscript. Make sure to use version 4.05 or later! * VTeX/Lnx is to be installed on an ext2 filesystem, because it makes use of long file names. The complete TeX system will require about 80MB of disk space. Required files -------------- vtexinst.cmd (installation program) vtexlnx.zip vtex-texmf.zip vtex-fonts.zip vtex-special.zip vtex-fonts2.zip vtex-doc.zip vtex-sem.zip (optional) vtex-gex.zip (optional) Remarks: When updating from VTeX 7.46 or 7.461, the files vtex-texmf.zip and vtex-fonts.zip are not required. The archive vtex-sem.zip includes the LaTeX packages seminar and prosper; you need not install it, unless you actually want to use these packages. vtex-gex.zip includes the documentation of VTeXs built-in PostScript interpreter; omit this file, if you want. You may still install these two files at any later time. The files are unchanged since release 7.460 (vtex-sem) and 7.320 (vtex-gex). Installing VTeX/Lnx ------------------- (0) In case you are already running a previous version of VTeX/Lnx and have customized the following configuration files, you should back up the files now: /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/pdf.fm /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/ps.fm /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/hyphen.cfg /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/plain.cfg They will be overwritten in course of the subsequent installation procedure; please, check your settings against the new files afterwards! * * Any version of VTeX _prior_ to 7.10 is to be deleted * manually! * (1) Unzip vtexlnx.zip in the directory /usr/local. Doing so will create a directory named vtex with several subdirectories: cd /usr/local unzip /vtexlnx When updating a previously installed VTeX, the unzip program will ask you whether to overwrite existing files: Enter "A" (i.e, "all files"). This holds also for the next step. (2) Unzip the remaining ZIP files in the directory /usr/local/vtex. Doing so will create a directory named texmf with several subdirectories: cd vtex unzip /vtex-texmf unzip /vtex-special unzip /vtex-fonts unzip /vtex-fonts2 unzip /vtex-doc unzip /vtex-sem unzip /vtex-gex (3) When VTeX/Lnx is installed for the first time: Add /usr/local/vtex/bin to your $PATH . (4) When installing VTeX/Lnx for the first time, or when updating from a version prior to 7.460: Copy vtex.ini from /usr/local/vtex/install to the directory /etc. This is the main configuration file, which may need to be customized -- see below. Do not delete the unchanged "template" from vtex/install. (5) When installing over an existent VTeX/Lnx, the following files are to be deleted manually, as they are obsolete now. They are not overwritten in step (2), because they reside in other directories now or have been renamed or abolished: texmf/vtex/config/latex.tex texmf/source/latex/base/vtex2.txt texmf/doc/vtex/font-setup.txt texmf/doc/makeindex/makeindex.txt texmf/doc/vtex/local.ger texmf/doc/vtex/psfonts.ger texmf/tex/latex/seminar/fancybox.sty texmf/vtex/config/utopia.ali You may also delete vtex/bin/vtexlnx.rc. The file is now named "vtex.ini" and resides in the directory /etc. Configuring VTeX/Lnx -------------------- There are three main configuration files which may need to be adapted to your system. However, the information from these files suits most Linux systems already: /etc/vtex.ini /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/pdf.fm /usr/local/vtex/texmf/vtex/config/ps.fm File vtex.ini: You may want to add further directories to the format search paths; see section 2.2.1 of the VTeX/Free Manual. Files ps.fm, pdf.fm: Locate the following section of each file: LOCAL-LNX { TEXMF = "/usr/local/vtex/texmf/" URW = "/usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/" } You may have to change /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts to the name of the directory where you keep the Type1 fonts that came with Ghostscript. Notice that both ps.fm and pdf.fm need to be edited and that the path must provide a trailing slash! Creating the LaTeX format file ------------------------------ Open a command line shell in an arbitrary working directory (however, not inside the TeX directory tree) and execute the following shell script: makevlatex You should move the log file latex.log to the directory /usr/local/vtex/fmt, so as to store it with the format file. If there is a complaint in the log file about "BAD file texsys.aux", then you have to delete the file texsys.aux from the current directory and try again; installation should run smoothly then. Now you should check, whether the installation works: Run the file ltxcheck.tex through LaTeX, thus making sure that the installation works. The file resides in the directory texmf/source/latex/base. Switch to this directory cd /usr/local/vtex/texmf/source/latex/base and execute the following command: vlatex ltxcheck This will produce a number of messages, each of which should be `OK', with one exception: LaTeX will complain that the EC fonts aren't available. Indeed, VTeX can handle PostScript fonts only, and the EC fonts in Type1 format are not (yet) distributed with VTeX/Free. Creating the plain TeX format file ---------------------------------- * * Omit this step, if you don't know what "plain TeX" is! * Execute the following command in an arbitrary working directory (however, not inside the TeX directory tree): makevplain You should move the log file plain.log to the directory /usr/local/vtex/fmt, so as to store it with the format file. Documentation ------------- See the files in the directory texmf\doc\vtex: local.eng Preliminary LaTeX Local Guide (read this first!) plain.eng plain TeX Local Guide (ignore it, if you don't know what "plain TeX" is) vtex.pdf The VTeX/Free manual font-setup.txt Preliminary description of the VTeX font setup gex.pdf GeX Manual forms.pdf How to use PDF forms from TeX animgif.pdf How to include animated GIFs into PDF documents psfonts.eng How to install additional Type1 fonts examples/* Sample documents Notice, that the sample file tryanim.tex and part of the examples in the document animgif.pdf do not work with Acrobat Reader 5, due to the "features" of the latest Acrobat. They do, however, work with Acrobat 4 and (almost) with Acrobat Reader 3 on OS/2, too. Known Bugs and problems ----------------------- * VTeX/Lnx may require a recent Linux distribution to work properly. This includes RedHat 7.x, Debian with kernel 4.4.4-k7, SuSE 7.1+, DLD 6.01. If you experience any problems running VTeX/Lnx with an older Linux, please, report to the maillist, so we can provide a workaround. * The Bibtex and Makeindex programs cannot search recursively for database and style files (.bst, .bib, .ist). However, all such files that come with the distribution, _are_ found. Note that this affects only the Linux version! Support ------- The NTG hosts a mailing list that can be used both to ask questions and to report bugs in the software and/or installation. The list is run by Majordomo, so to subscribe send a message to with the following line in the body subscribe ntg-vtex The mailing list itself can be reached as Legal stuff ----------- MicroPress and VTeX are trademarks of MicroPress, Inc. The MicroPress' components of the VTeX/Lnx distribution are Copyright (C) 1998-2001 by MicroPress Inc. The MicroPress' components of the VTeX/Lnx distribution are free for personal use, subject to the following restriction: You must obtain a permission from either MicroPress Inc or Walter Schmidt, if you intend to redistribute VTeX/2 on a permanent media (CD), or host it on a Web site other than by mirroring the official distribution. Adobe, Acrobat and PostScript are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. == finis