[gentoo-dev] LaTeX documentation

[Andrey Grozin]

Hello *,

Many packages have documentation in LaTeX, and latex is being run (often 
when USE=doc). This may cause a sandbox violation, if a font not yet 
generated on this particular computer is encountered: latex calls metafont 
to generate it, and metafont wants to write it to /var/cache/fonts (and 
its subdirectories). The worst thing is that this bug is unpredictable: if 
only commonly-used fonts are encountered, they are already in 
/var/cache/fonts, and everything is OK; on some other computer, the same 
package can produce a sandbox violation.

There are two methods commonly used to fight against this situation in 
ebuilds: using addwrite or setting VARTEXFONTS="${T}/fonts". The second 
method is, probably, better. The packages still using addwrite are:

app-doc/doxygen
app-office/kletterwizard
app-text/noweb
dev-lisp/cl-mcclim
dev-python/pyopenssl
dev-tex/feynmf
dev-tex/memoir
media-gfx/asymptote
media-libs/t1lib
media-libs/allegro
sci-chemistry/moldy
sci-mathematics/pari
sci-visualization/pyxplot

Probably, it would be a good idea to change these ebuilds.

The packages using the VARTEXFONTS method are

app-emulation/wine
app-text/jadetex
app-text/linuxdoc-tools
dev-lang/R
dev-tex/listings
dev-tex/texpower
dev-tex/envlab
dev-tex/bibtex2html
dev-tex/xcolor
dev-tex/latex2rtf
dev-tex/mh
media-libs/libcaca
media-libs/libdvdcss
media-libs/aubio
media-libs/libfishsound
sci-mathematics/octave
sci-visualization/gnuplot

Two of them convertex just recently: app-text/jadetex between 3.13-r1 and 
3.13-r2, and dev-tex/listings between 1.3 and 1.4. Good for them.

Most disturbingly, there are a number of packages which (probably) run 
latex and do neither addwrite nor VARTEXFONTS. An incomplete list of such 
suspect packages is (for now, I only considered packages not directly 
related to TeX/LaTeX, i.e., not in dev-tex or dev-texlive and not 
TeX/LaTeX packages in app-text):

app-backup/bacula
app-emacs/pymacs
app-emacs/slime
app-emulation/xen-tools
app-i18n/canna
app-misc/tdl
app-misc/fdutils
dev-ada/xmlada
dev-ada/asis-gcc
dev-ada/asis-gpl
dev-embedded/avrdude
dev-haskell/lhs2tex         (*)
dev-lang/mlton
dev-lang/mmix
dev-libs/beecrypt
dev-libs/libtomcrypt
dev-lisp/gcl
dev-lisp/cl-cffi
dev-lisp/cl-cgi-utils
dev-lisp/cl-iterate/cl-iterate-1.4  (**)
dev-lisp/cl-tclink                  (***)
dev-lisp/cl-xml-psychiatrist
dev-lisp/clisp
dev-python/python-xlib
dev-python/pyx
dev-tcltk/tkzinc
dev-tinyos/tos
dev-util/bnfc
dev-util/ragel
dev-util/darcs
games-board/freedoko
media-gfx/sane-backends
media-sound/musescore           (****)
media-video/dirac
net-analyzer/ns
net-analyzer/sonar
net-dialup/mgetty
sci-biology/wise
sci-libs/netcdf
sci-libs/pgplot
sci-mathematics/axiom
sci-mathematics/ginac
sci-mathematics/nusmv
sci-misc/gri
sci-misc/nco
sys-block/btrace
sys-cluster/mpich2
sys-cluster/pvfs2
sys-cluster/charm
sys-power/apcupsd
sys-power/powersave

(*) By the way, here a .pdf file is installed using dodoc, and hence will 
be bzip2ed - not a goog idea

(**) but not later versions

(***) The only place where the USE flag "doc" is used commented out???

(****) USE flag "doc" never used??

These are (potentially) bombs waiting to blow up an unsuspecting user. 
They should be carefully checked.

By the way, while investigating this question, I found quite a few 
packages which still depend on virtual/tetex, while, probably, 
virtual/latex-base would be better (in some of them, the USE flag tetex 
then should become latex). Some suspects are:

app-doc/doxygen
app-emacs/slime
app-misc/tdl
app-misc/fdutils
app-misc/muttprint
app-misc/chesstask
app-office/eqe
app-office/texmaker
app-office/grisbi
app-office/kletterwizard
app-text/a2ps
app-text/dvipdfmx
app-text/noweb
app-text/active-dvi
app-text/evince
app-text/pdfjam
app-text/passivetex
app-text/kbibtex
app-vim/latexsuite
dev-ada/asis-gpl
dev-embedded/avrdude
dev-haskell/lhs2tex
dev-lang/mmix
dev-libs/libtomcrypt
dev-lisp/cl-mcclim
dev-lisp/cl-cgi-utils
dev-lisp/cl-iterate
dev-lisp/clisp
dev-lisp/cl-tclink
dev-lisp/cl-cffi
dev-perl/Template-Latex
dev-python/pyx
dev-python/epydoc
dev-tcltk/tkzinc
dev-tinyos/tos
dev-util/bnfc
dev-util/ragel
dev-util/darcs
games-board/freedoko
kde-base/kdvi
kde-base/kopete
media-gfx/asymptote
media-libs/vflib
media-libs/allegro
media-sound/musescore
net-analyzer/ns
net-analyzer/sonar
net-dialup/mgetty
sci-biology/wise
sci-chemistry/moldy
sci-electronics/gnucap
sci-geosciences/gpsbabel
sci-libs/libcore
sci-libs/pgplot
sci-libs/itpp
sci-mathematics/pari
sci-mathematics/nusmv
sci-misc/gri
sci-physics/jaxodraw
sci-physics/paw
sci-physics/cernlib
sci-physics/cernlib-montecarlo
sci-physics/geant
sci-visualization/pyxplot
sys-block/btrace
sys-cluster/mpich2
sys-cluster/charm
sys-power/apcupsd
sys-power/powersave
www-apps/mediawiki
www-servers/boa
x11-plugins/pidgin-latex

(I have not checked in detail, maybe, some of them indeed need tetex).

What do you think?

Andrey
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