[Tex/LaTex] TeX Live 2011 vs Ubuntu TeX Live

debianlinuxtexliveUbuntu

Is it worth the effort to manually install TeX Live 2011 on Ubuntu?
Has so much changed since 2009?

I am a new Ubuntu user coming from windows and have very limited
knowledge of Linux environment. I have read contradictory things about
how to set up TeX Live 2011 in an Ubuntu environment and all the
instructions I have found contains part that are obscure to me.
Thus, I am somehow compelled to sudo apt-get texlive.

If I only have t manually install a few package in my ~/texmf to
resolve some occasional bugs that have been fixed since 2009 that
would be all right, at least until I know better.
But I am wondering if I might not end up doing this a lot?

Best Answer

Is it worth the effort? Yes. The installation is pretty straight forward, especially when you install over the internet; you get the benefit of: having the most up-to-date version of every package (not three-year old ones), tlmgr, which will let you update your packages just as easily as apt-get, and finally, the whole installation process will shed some light on the parts you find obscure, in a learn-by-doing sort of way.

Start with How to install TeX Live on Ubuntu: How to install "vanilla" TeXLive on Debian or Ubuntu? and follow the directions therein.