The version 2.8 of the Windows LaTeX Distribution MiKTeX has been released on September 1, 2009. Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, Server 2003 and 2008 are supported. It’s coming with a portable edition that makes it possible to run MiKTeX for instance from USB sticks. MiKTeX now includes the integrated development environment TeXworks.

For more information visit

• the MiKTeX homepage,
• the 2.8 status page,
• the release notes,
• the download/setup area.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

Yesterday Christian Schenk has released the portable edition of MiKTeX 2.8 beta3. This edition allows to use MiKTeX on portable storage devices like USB sticks or flash cards for use on any Windows (2000/XP/Vista/7) computer. Using Portable MiKTeX leaves no traces on the host computer, no administrator privileges would be needed. Visit miktex.org/portable for more information and download.

Christian Schenk announced on April 2nd that he’s planning to release a portable MiKTeX edition later this year. The portable edition will allow you to run MiKTeX from a flash drive:

• you could carry MiKTeX on a portable drive for use on any Windows computer,
• configuration settings will be stored on the portable drive and not on the host computer,
• using the portable edition won’t leave traces on the host computer,
• administrator privileges on the host computer won’t be necessary.

Christian said that a beta will be released soon, on April 6th he has noted that also the package manager will be available with the portable edition and that packages will be on installed on the flash drive.

The MiKTeX Package Manager (mpm) is a tool originally intended for MiKTeX users on Windows platforms. It was ported by Christian Schenk for unix systems, to provide easy access to the MiKTeX package repository also for unix user. There are some docs describing installation and use, some are obsolete now, that’s why I will give a summary how I’ve installed the mpm on the latest Ubuntu Linux version today.

The mpm sources can be downloaded from http://miktex.org/unx.

Important: have a look at the README.unx file! Below are the commands I applied during installation.

Installation of some required packages in addition to the basic setup:
$ sudo apt-get install g++ cmake libcurl3 libcurl4-gnutls-dev lynx

Decompress the archive, change into the created directory, run cmake to produce customized makefiles (I added options to use texmf in my home directory) , run make to compile and to install:
$ tar xfj miktex-2.7.2960.tar.bz2
$ cd miktex-2.7.2960/
$ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DMIKTEX_INSTALLROOT="/home/stefan/texmf" -DMIKTEX_ROOTS="/home/stefan/texmf"
$ make
$ sudo make install

The MiKTeX Package Manager installation is complete. Create the file name database files:
$ sudo ldconfig
$ sudo initexmf -u
$ sudo mpm --update-db


Finally the mpm is ready to use.

Links:

• mpm Homepage
• How to use the package manager on Unix-like operating systems
• mpm on ubuntu.com
• mpm manual page
• M(iKTeX) P(ackage) M(anager) for Unix-alikes
• mpm in the ubuntuusers.de wiki
• Paket-Verwaltung unter Unix/Linux