Re: Publish to PDF on Linux: An impossible task?

[John Hendy]

On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 6:41 PM Marcin Borkowski <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>
> On 2019-11-11, at 01:25, John Hendy <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 6:01 PM Nathan Neff <address@hidden> wrote:
> >>
> >> After using org-mode for 10 years, I run for the doorway when
> >> I even think about trying to convert an org-mode file to PDF.
> >>
> >> *** I quiver when I see errors such as:
> >>
> >> warning: kpathsea: configuration file texmf.cnf not found in these 
> >> directories: 
> >> /usr/bin:/usr/bin/share/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/bin/share/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/bin/share/texmf/web2c:/usr/bin/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/bin/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/bin/texmf/web2c:/usr:/usr/share/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/share/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/share/texmf/web2c:/usr/texmf-local/web2c:/usr/texmf-dist/web2c:/usr/texmf/web2c://texmf-local/web2c:/://share/texmf-local/web2c://share/texmf-dist/web2c://share/texmf/web2c://texmf-local/web2c://texmf-dist/web2c://texmf/web2c.
> >> This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.20 (TeX Live 2019/Arch Linux) 
> >> (preloaded format=pdflatex)
> >>
> >> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt pdflatex.fmt
> >> mktexfmt: No such file or directory
> >> I can't find the format file `pdflatex.fmt'!
> >
> > These look like latex errors to me, nothing to do with Org. Guessing
>
> These are not LaTeX errors, they are lower-level ones.

By "LaTeX" I mean "that which is necessary to have a functioning latex
system." If by lower-level you mean the ecosystem itself vs. compiling
errors, completely agree. Clearly some core components are missing.
For example, the texmf.cnf file is provided by the arch package
texlive-core (assuming a package was used), so that's potentially not
even installed.
- https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/texlive-core/

> > you used the arch package? I'm on arch myself, but after getting
> > bitten by package mismatches and things being hopelessly broken, I
> > switched to just using texlive directly:
> > - https://www.tug.org/texlive/
> >
> > It's not that bad. There's even a quick guide to walk you through the
> > tl-install script. If you'd rather troubleshoot what you have going on
> > now, here's some places to start:
> > - you're missing files... figure out which package is supposed to
> > provide them and install it
>
> He misses LaTeX format file itself, and apparently mktexfmt (which
> should create it) cannot be found.  This seems more serious than what
> you write.

I would divide "serious" into "major but simple" and "complicated." In
easily 90% of cases with error output like this, it's going to be a
missing package, not some intricate system glitch that requires
troubleshooting. Indeed, my guess is exactly that: there are "serious"
errors because nothing resembling a functioning latex system exists.
The root cause is probably very simple.

> > - check your paths
>
> Agreed, but this may be quite subtle...

Again, I suspect much simpler. When using texlive directly, for
example, one has to set paths correctly. This If it's looking in
system paths vs. a user path (e.g. I install to ~/.texlive, not /usr)
and this was not set via .bashrc, that's what I mean one should check.
This presumes the expected packages are installed at all.

I would start with simply:

$ pacman -Q |grep tex

and

$ which pdflatex

John

>
> Best,
>
> --
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://mbork.pl