Background
Updated $\LaTeX$ version
From this $\TeX$-SE question about tlmgr, we see some advantages of installing $\TeX$Live directly from the official site:
- avoid errors due to outdated version of $\TeX$Live supplied by the OS’s package manager
- easier to manage packages with
tlmgr. - enjoy the newer version of $\TeX$Live not yet available in your current GNU/Linux version.
The installation took about 30 minutes and 5G in the disk. I’ve chosen a local
installation as this didn’t require sudo privileges. The whole process went
smooth and the system displayed a message about setting
Atom & $\LaTeX$
Due to Juno, an IDE for Julia on Atom, I’ve started using Atom for
$\LaTeX$ document preparation. I’ve chosen James Yu’s
Atom-$\LaTeX$ for the task. Unluckily, I received an error during a
compilation because Atom couldn’t detect the locally installed
$\TeX$Live and the $PATH in my ZSHRC.
Problem
The problems in the previous section bring us to the classical problem of
setting the environment $PATH on GNU/Linux. At first, I thought it was just
another easy piece of config work. Either one of the following would do.
- system-wide:
- edit
/etc/environment; or - create a symbolic link under
/usr/bin, or/usr/local/bin, or etc
- edit
- local:
- edit my BASHRC/ZSHRC; or
- create a symbolic link under
~/binor~/.local/bin, or etc
However, I struggled with these these for a day without success.
Discussion
Hours of experiments lead me to this (over-)simplified division of roles of the system’s config files.
| Files | Scope | GUI | TTY | TERM | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
/etc/environment |
system | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | set environment $PATH system-wide |
~/.zshrc |
user | ❌ | ✓ | ✓ | set shell $PATH after ~/.zprofile |
~/.zprofile |
user | ❌ | ✓ | ❌ | fix session $PATH right after shell login |
~/.xprofile |
user | ✓ | ❌ | ✓ | fix session $PATH right after GUI login (XFCE only) |
~/.pam_environment |
user | ✓ | ❌ | ✓ | set $PATH after GUI login (special syntax) |
Remarks: You may replace “Zsh” with “bash” in the above table. When
~/.zprofile (or ~/.bash_profile) is present, the system would read it
instead of ~/.profile.
- TTY: shell login in
/dev/tty{n} - TERM: terminal emulator in GUI
The difference between ~/.zshrc and ~/.zprofile is that the later is only
read once after login, while the former can be updated by either
source ~/.zshrc or starting a new terminal window in GUI. Therefore, the
later holds shell varaibles that remain constant throughout the session.
Solution
Here’s how I set the $PATH.
- system-wide installed Julia under
/opt/etc/environment
- locally installed $\TeX$Live under
~/.local/texlive:~/.pam_environment: I couldn’t find a GNOME counterpart of~/.xprofile.~/.zshrc: larger coverage than~/.zprofile, more commonly set.
Since I manage my dotfiles with GNU Stow, after creating a new file, I
will stow {folder} to create the corresponding symbolic link(s).
