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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: toca180 on October 10, 2005, 05:20:02 PM

Title: Latex on Amiga
Post by: toca180 on October 10, 2005, 05:20:02 PM

Hi

Is there Latex and a DVI file viewer for the Amiga? If, so where would I get them from?

Thanks

Robert

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: Argo on October 10, 2005, 08:04:37 PM

Have you tried searching Aminet (www.aminet.net) for Latex. I know it does exist for the Amiga and has for quite some time.

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: Cymric on October 11, 2005, 07:21:10 PM

Yes, there is. You'll be wanting text/tex/amiweb2c.lha from Aminet. IIRC, the DVI previewer is included. Some assembly required, though!

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: darkcoder on October 12, 2005, 09:08:38 AM

The better and more updated Latex system (although a bit old now) is amiweb2c. It includes a DVI previwer (not as powerfull as xdvi, unfortunately) taken from Pastex, an older and also good Latex system. The main disadvantage of Pastex is that its   managing of directories makes it difficult to arrange Latex packages in a standard Latex tree. With amiweb it is possible.

Take in mind that installation of any of these packages is not easy and require time and Latex knowledge. I installed both PasTex and Amiweb, and for both I needed a couple of weeks to complete the job (working in the spare time, of course). In particular, Amiweb distribution does not include any Tex macros, which you need to take from a CTAN source and install by yourself. It is a lenghty job, although interesting because you learn a lot more about Tex than you do with click-and-install Latex distributions. Anyway, after some work I got a good Latex system.
I use up-2-date Latex systems at work on both Windoze and Linux system, but up to now, I have been able to port and correclty compile any Latex source from those ugly systems to my nice Amiga Latex system. I successfully compiled on Amiga documents with hundreds of pages, a lot of math and PS figures. Of course compile time with a 68060 or (in the past) with a 68030 is much longer than with  a 21th century CPU.

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: Abou27 on October 12, 2005, 10:10:10 AM

Hmm. Not nearly as exciting as the title suggested:-(

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: toca180 on October 12, 2005, 10:32:31 AM

Thanks. I have tried PasTex and it is a bit old. I will have to have a look at amiweb2c.

Thanks all

Robert

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: billyfish on October 12, 2005, 10:41:43 AM

Hi darkcoder

I currently have the amiweb2c system installed, are you saying that your latex system is more up-to-date than the bog-standard amiweb? If so, have you got any tips on how to update it? Is it a case of downloading lots of source from ctan and compiling it as is or is there more to it?

cheers

billy

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: Cymric on October 12, 2005, 12:06:55 PM

If I remember correctly (it really has been a long time since I used amiweb2c), then its version of iniTeX and TeX is somewhere around 3.1415 instead of 3.141592. But these differences are exceedingly minor and won't affect your normal day-to-day work. What you definitely would need to upgrade is the core set of macro packages, in particular LaTeX2e. LaTeX3 is still under development (to be expected with such a masochistic underlying language). You can find those packages on the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network at, for example, tug.ctan.org. They come with detailed installation instructions; if you have problems, ask around on the Usenet newsgroup comp.text.tex.

I regret I cannot offer more specific advice, since it has been a long time since I delved into the internals of a full TeX installation---ever since I started using LyX (unfortunately not available for Amigas, but is for Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac) I have not looked back.

Title: Re: Latex on Amiga
Post by: darkcoder on October 13, 2005, 08:17:47 AM

@billyfish

 as well explained by Cymric, the basic (system dependent) TeX engines and basic support tools (for example BibTeX) that I have are those in the Amiweb2c package available on aminet.
Unfortunately, the are not (all) port of the more recent version available (as open source if I remember right), but it is not so important since these programs are very stable for a  precise and IMHO excellent decision of Knuth and other people behind them. What I have recently updated are a big number of TeX macro packages, including Latex and a number of Latex packages. All these macros are system independent, which is very nice for Amiga since you can always be up to date with the most recent Latex development, if you do the effort of installing them. There is a huge number of Latex packages, and even if you limit yourself to the "required" ones, you'll spend a lot of time in doing the job (well, consider that I don't have Amigas with broad band connection, so I had to download everything with a PC and then port to Amy). As far as I remeber, by the way, amiweb2c does not come with Latex macros, so you should have done the job at least once.