Question about packaging TexLive

[Simon Tournier]

Hi,

CC: TeX team

For context, TeX (broad meaning) is deep in the graph, thus its
preservation is important when considering time-travel.  And because TeX
packages relies on Subversion, it raises some questions – for the
interesting reader, see [1].

Here, I would like to open a discussion about the way we are packaging
TeX, quoting Nicolas from [2]:

        There are two approaches going on here. `simple-texlive-package' tries
        to provide a tessellation of the full texlive, i.e., if you install
        (assuming they are defined in Guix) every standalone texlive package,
        you will get the exact full texlive distribution, whereas
        `texlive-ref' + `texlive-build-system' tries to generate a minimal (a
        bit too minimal considering missing documentation) working system.
        I think the old way is error prone.

        So, do we (not only the two of us, obviously) agree on the
        `simple-texlive-package' approach? If so, what should we do about
        "source"?

        2: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/62570#10

Other said, any objection to go from this pattern:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(define-public texlive-foo
  (package
    (name "texlive-foo")
    (version (number->string %texlive-revision))
    (source (origin
              (method svn-multi-fetch)
              (uri (svn-multi-reference
                    (url (string-append "svn://www.tug.org/texlive/tags/"
                                        %texlive-tag "/Master/texmf-dist"))
                    (locations '("/metafont/"
                                 "/fonts/source/public/modes/"))
                    (revision %texlive-revision)))
              (file-name (string-append name "-" version "-checkout"))
              (sha256
               (base32
                "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"))))
    (build-system gnu-build-system)
    (arguments
     `(#:tests? #f ; no test target
       #:phases
[...]
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

to this pattern:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(define-public texlive-foo
  (package
    (inherit (simple-texlive-package
              "texlive-foo"
              (list "/tex/generic/foo")
              (base32
               "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx")
              #:trivial? #t))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

It is about ~35 packages, if I count correctly.

WDYT?

Cheers,
simon

1: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/43442#20