Re: [AUCTeX] preview files conflicting

[Arash Esbati]

2017-02-18 19:41 -0500 Carlos <address@hidden>:

> My question is why was AUCTeX the owner of the files on that directory,
> why did it write the files in the first place, when texlive-latexextra
> will install the same files afterwards.

Those files are an integral part of preview, without them, it will not
work.  From the manual [1]:

    6. For advanced users

    This package consists of two parts: a LaTeX style that splits the
    output into appropriate parts with one preview object on each page,
    and an Emacs-lisp part integrating the thing into Emacs (aided by
    AUCTeX).

    6.1 The LaTeX style file

    The main purpose of this package is the extraction of certain
    environments (most notably displayed formulas) from LaTeX sources as
    graphics.

Preview has to install those files somewhere where TeX can find and use
them, i.e. in a texmf directory.

Now, some other TeX packages in TeXlive rely on preview.sty,
e.g. pst-pdf.  Since it is not feasible to tell everybody who wants to
use pst-pdf to install AUCTeX or extract the relevant files from AUCTeX
bundle, the TeX part of preview is on CTAN and hence in TeXlive.
Preview itself has no idea how it will packaged later by TeXlive and/or
distros.

Best, Arash

Footnotes: 
[1]  
https://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/manual/preview-latex.html#For-advanced-users