[Tex/LaTex] how to Install new packages during freeze period

texlivetexlive-2017tlmgr

Apparently TeX Live 2017 is now in the freeze period in anticipation of Tex Live 2018, because I tried running sudo tlmgr install tikz (for a re-install of TeX Live I was doing), and I hit this error:

TeX Live 2017 is frozen forever and will no
longer be updated.  This happens in preparation for a new release.

If you're interested in helping to pretest the new release (when
pretests are available), please read http://tug.org/texlive/pretest.html.
Otherwise, just wait, and the new release will be ready in due time.
tlmgr: package repository http://ctan.mirrors.hoobly.com/systems/texlive/tlnet (verified)
tlmgr: saving backups to /usr/local/texlive/2017/tlpkg/backups
tlmgr: no updates available

Given I don't have the time to wait until whenever TeX Live 2018 releases to install tikz, is there a way to circumvent the freeze, or will I have to manually install packages from CTAN?

Best Answer

You claim to have issued sudo tlmgr install tikz, but if I do it on my machine I get

> sudo tlmgr install tikz
TeX Live 2017 is frozen forever and will no
longer be updated.  This happens in preparation for a new release.

If you're interested in helping to pretest the new release (when
pretests are available), please read http://tug.org/texlive/pretest.html.
Otherwise, just wait, and the new release will be ready in due time.
tlmgr: package repository http://ctan.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet (verified)
tlmgr install: package tikz not present in repository.
tlmgr: action install returned an error; continuing.
tlmgr: An error has occurred. See above messages. Exiting.

If I try to install an already installed package, I get

> sudo tlmgr install regexpatch
TeX Live 2017 is frozen forever and will no
longer be updated.  This happens in preparation for a new release.

If you're interested in helping to pretest the new release (when
pretests are available), please read http://tug.org/texlive/pretest.html.
Otherwise, just wait, and the new release will be ready in due time.
tlmgr: package repository http://ctan.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet (verified)
tlmgr install: package already present: regexpatch

I only get the message you report if I try to update:

> sudo tlmgr update --all
TeX Live 2017 is frozen forever and will no
longer be updated.  This happens in preparation for a new release.

If you're interested in helping to pretest the new release (when
pretests are available), please read http://tug.org/texlive/pretest.html.
Otherwise, just wait, and the new release will be ready in due time.
tlmgr: package repository http://ctan.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet (verified)
tlmgr: saving backups to /usr/local/texlive/2017/tlpkg/backups
tlmgr: no updates available

Now, if you don't have TikZ/PGF on your machine, the correct way to install it should be

sudo tlmgr install pgf

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Upgrading from 2009 to 2010 is not possible. The bugs and updates page says the following:

It is not possible to upgrade from TL 2009 to TL 2010, so install the new release in a new directory (as is done by default). install-tl may offer to import options (not packages) from a previous release, but results are not guaranteed.

[Tex/LaTex] TeX Live — problem with install [Ubuntu, bash]; new packages

actually this is a further comment on corentin's answer, but it exceeds 600 characters.

Since http://www.tug.org/texlive/devsrc/Master/texmf-dist/tex/latex/ is an Apache directory listing you can try downloading packages with wget. For example if you want to download l3experimental where xcoffins is a subfolder you can invoke wget like

wget --cut-dir=4 -np -R "index.html*" -nH -P ~/texmf -r http://www.tug.org/texlive/devsrc/Master/texmf-dist/tex/latex/l3experimental/

wget --cut-dir=6 -np -R "index.html*" -P ~/texmf/tex/latex -r http://www.tug.org/texlive/devsrc/Master/texmf-dist/tex/latex/l3experimental/

this.

-P ~/dir/in/home/directory/ specifies the local directory where wget should put your files.
-nH tells wget that you don't want to create directories named after the host i.e. ~/texmf/www.tug.org/*/*/ looks not so nice and latex won't find anything under ~/texmf/www.tug.org. But you can omit -nH and change the local directory to -P ~/textmf/tex/latex. Then you have a seperate directory tree that latex also searches.
whereby --cut-dir=x means that you don't want to create the first x folders of the uri in your local directory (you want to create ~/texmf/tex/latex/l3experimental/ or ~/texmf/tex/latex/www.tug.org/l3experimental/ instead of ~/textmf/texlive/devsrc/Master/texmf-dist/tex/latex/l3experimental).
-R instructs wget to exclude all files beginning with index.html.
-r is for recursive fetch
the argument of -P is the directory where you want to save all those things
-np excludes all parent directories of l3experimental (of course you can find a more detailed description in the manual pages of wget)

but generally be careful if you download things with wget recursively it could mess up a whole directory tree. I would recommend you to first download the files in a temporary directory (for example with -P ~/texmftemporary) where you can examine the downloaded directory tree.

Since latex also searches recursively for packages in ~/texmf/tex/latex you don't have to bother if xcoffins is a subfolder of any other folder/folders.

Of course you can redefine things further if you write a little bash, perl or whatever script that is based on the above command.

Maybe this helps you!?

Best Answer

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