TeX Live 2009 released
9 November 2009 by Stefan Kottwitz
After development and many weeks of testing, final bug fixing and translations the new TeX Live 2009 has been released today.
Some changes and improvements in 2009:
- pdf(La)TeX now automatically converts included eps files to pdf, using the epstopdf package, if graphics.cfg is loaded and pdf output is chosen.
- The execution of certain external commands, for example epstopdf, makeindex, and bibtex, using \write18, is now enabled by default. The texmf.cnf file determines those commands.
- Updated AMS Type 1 fonts are included, the Euler fonts have been reshaped.
- The new editor TeXworks is included for Windows and MacTeX. Other distributions like Ubuntu and Debian Linux will provide this cross-platform editor with their own packaging system.
- Asymptote is included for several platforms.
- dvipdfm has been replaced by dvipdfmx.
- pdf is now the default output format for Lua(La)TeX. dvi output can be achieved by using the new executables dviluatex and dvilualatex.
In my opinion it’s a big step forward because several Linux Distributions like Ubuntu and Debian Linux are clinging to TL 2007 until now. While TL 2008 has been skipped the packaging for TL 2009 for Debian and Ubuntu is in progress, thanks to the work of especially Norbert Preining and Frank Küster. Though v2008 and v2009 worked fine on Linux it’s important to provide TeX with the distribution repositories, less workarounds will be necessary.
This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.
This entry was posted on 9 November 2009 at 10:19 PM and is filed under TeX Live, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
11 November 2009 at 12:19 AM
[…] TL2009 in French by far while Joseph Wright and Stefan Kottwitz have also contributed blog posts in English and in […]
11 November 2009 at 12:55 AM
Unfortunately, restricted write18 and automatic eps to pdf conversion features has been removed in the last minute due to security concerns. There is some more work required to ensure that restricted commands remain restricted.
21 November 2009 at 4:54 PM
Any more news on when TL 2009 will be available in the Debian/Ubuntu repositories?
21 November 2009 at 11:49 PM
Experimental TL 2009 Debian packages have been uploaded by Norbert Preining today (texlive-base 2009-2, texlive-extra 2009-2, texlive-bin 2009-2). If more people would contribute in packaging and testing TL 2009 would be available sooner, at the moment we could be thankful that Norbert does so much work. Without him I would not expect a Debian release of a current TeX Live version. I wish I would have time to contribute by myself but I’m involved very much in my work.
22 November 2009 at 8:17 PM
Stefan,
thanks. And also a huge thanks to Norbert for doing that job.
23 January 2010 at 6:11 PM
[…] my Debian Unstable/”Sid” jumped over to TeX Live 2009 a couple of days before (after being backward with 2007 as standard TeX distribution for a long time […]