mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Paul Zarucki <address@hidden>]

Hi Vincent,

Your best choice depends partly on which combination of packages (Texmacs, Maxima, Octave, etc.) you want to use and how much extra work you are prepared to do in order to make them work together. So far I have tried Debian 4.0 (because this is what my real computer uses), Ubuntu 8.04 (because it is popular), liveTexmacs 1.0.6, liveTexmacs 1.0.7 and Quantian 0.7.9.2. The packages and plugins I have tried are Maxima, Octave, GNUplot, and R. My impression so far is that more things work "out of the box" on Debian 4.0 than any other platform I have tried. I'd be happy to write a recipe showing how to install and set it up (it isn't difficult actually).

My experiments are not complete and I stand to be corrected for any mistakes, but I present my findings so far for what they are worth (see below).

In your particular case, there is also the matter of PDF import and export as your document DS3.tm has proven to be a difficult test case! In Debian 4.0 it opens and displays correctly in Texmacs, exports correctly to PS/PDF and prints correctly - a "full house". None of the other platforms I tried are able to export or print it correctly and on some platforms it doesn't even display correctly in Texmacs.

My limited understanding of Texmacs is that Ghostscript is used to render PS/PDF objects and to create PS/PDF exports. It appears that success depends on the version of Ghostscript that is installed. It might also depend on the method used by Geobra to create the original PDF. I seem to recall that when I tried importing a PDF document that I had created, it rendered correctly in Ubuntu even though DS3.tm did not.

You could start with a live CD that already has the necessary software installed, e.g. Quantian 0.7.9.2 or liveTexmacs 1.0.6, then you won't need to install anything! My impression is that Debian or Ubuntu installed to the (virtual) hard disc runs more quickly than a live CD on the same virtual machine. However, the live CD method lets you try the idea of a virtual computer more quickly and easily. See my previous e-mail for related comments on this.

Note that Quantian is a very big download at 2.7GB but has lots of software already installed! Live Texmacs is smaller (700MB approx) but the server is slow and I found it quicker to download Quantian.

Hope this helps.

Paul.

Package versions

This table shows the version numbers of the relevant packages available on each platform, either pre-installed or available from the official repository (of course, you could always compile a different version from source code). Where more than one version is available, the version shown here is the one I used.

Platform
Texmacs
Ghostscript
GNUplot
Maxima
Octave
R
Debian 4.0
1.0.6-10
ESP 8.15.3
4.0.0-5
5.10.0-6
2.1.73-13
2.4.0.20061125
LiveTexmacs 1.0.6
1.0.6.2
ESP 7.0.7 4.0
5.9.3
2.9.3
2.2.0
LiveTexmacs 1.0.7
1.0.7 GPL 8.61
?
5.16.3 2.1.73 -
Quantian 0.7.9.2
1.0.5-3.1
ESP 7.07.1-9
4.0 5.9.2-2
2.1.72-10
2.2.1-6
Ubuntu 8.04
1.0.6.11-2
GPL 8.61
4.2.2-1
5.13.0-3
3.0
2.6.2-2

Working features and plug-ins

Platform
PDF export
format
PDF import¹
GNUplot
Maxima
Octave
R
Debian 4.0
1.4 Yes
Yes Yes Yes Yes Debian 4.0 with Texmacs 1.0.7 from source
1.4 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes LiveTexmacs 1.0.6
1.2 Yes²
Yes Yes
Yes
Yes
LiveTexmacs 1.0.7
1.4
No⁷


No⁶
Quantian 0.7.9.2
1.2 Yes² Yes
Yes


Ubuntu 8.04
1.4 Yes³
Almost⁵
No⁴
Yes
NOTES

1. Texmacs can import a page or graphic in PDF format and embed it into the document like any other graphic. This can be useful for importing graphics produced by other software. It doesn't work on all platforms but it works well on Debian 4.0 (I suspect it depends which version of Ghostscript is installed).
2. Doesn't work with DS3.tm. The document is correct in Texmacs but, when exported to PS/PDF, the graphics appear full-page (or not at all) and overlay one another.
3. Doesn't work with DS3.tm. When DS3.tm is opened in Texmacs the rendering of the imported PDF is very unreliable. When the document is exported to PS/PDF, the graphics appear full-page (or not at all) and overlay one another.
4. The version supplied (or available from the official package repository) is not compatible with the supplied version of Texmacs.
5. Can be made to work with some minor setting up.
6. Not included (possibly could be added).
7. GNUplot crashes immediately with error message "error while loading shared libraries: libwx_gtk2ud_richtext-2.8.so.0: cannot open shared object: No such file or directory"
   

el.douwen wrote: hi everybody
i have decided to try this solution virtual box
i have just downloaded it for my mac
if it works well i will try on the Pcs in the lycee
for the moment i have a very simple question:
which system should i install on my virtual box ?
linux ? and which version ? ubuntu ? and where to download it ?
Vincent

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