[Nix-dev] Installing TeXLive

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

I just found out that to have a usable TeXLive, one isn't supposed to
installed the `texlive-*' packages directly.  Instead, one should add
something like the following, say, to `all-packages.nix':

  texLiveFull =
    texLiveAggregationFun { paths = [ texLive texLiveExtra
                                      texLiveBeamer ]; };

... after which "nix-env -Ai texLiveFull" will install the whole
shebang.

(Note that `icecatWrapper', for instance, has a similar problem with
plug-ins, except that it reads options from `~/.nixpkgs/config.nix'.)

I found it quite inconvenient, especially since the resulting package
name, `TeXLive-linkdir', isn't as meaningful as `texlive-core-2007',
`texlive-beamer-2007', etc.  Also, symlinking all these files is quite
time-consuming.

Can't we instead solve that by doing the job of `texLiveAggregationFun',
i.e., collecting things in a single directory, in each package's
`postInstall'?  That is, `texlive-{core,beamer,extra}' would install
cls/sty files under "$out/share/texmf-dist" such that the user only
needs to "export TEXINPUTS=$HOME/.nix-profile/share/texmf-dist".

Opinions?

Thanks,
Ludo'.