-----Original Message----- From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] On Behalf Of Mojca Miklavec Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 6:14 AM To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best version of ConTeXt On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 02:03, Tom wrote:

What would be the best version of ConTeXt to recommend to a friend who writes novels on a PC running Windows? The person has no programming skills. He would probably require some assistance installing Tex-Live or whatever and would need a stable version because he couldn't manage frequent updates. Problems would far outweigh additional features for him.

TeX Live 2010 should work fine. Mojca I don't expect there will be much ConTeXt activity from our Dutch friends today due to the big game, but I will risk a question anyway.

From which site should Americans download Tex Live 2010? Minimals only?

The Wiki suggests that command-line and GUI installers can be downloaded from there and that either a stable or beta version can be selected from either of the installers. Is this the recommended method for non-technical types to get Tex Live? I assume that the beta version is the latest 2010 version, bugs and all, and that the stable version is the one suggested by Mojca and is close to the one that Taco says will go physical in September. Will anything else, such as Ruby, be required? Tom Benjey 717-258-9733 voice 717-243-0074 fax Twitter: @TomBenjey

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 13:54, Tom wrote:

From which site should Americans download Tex Live 2010? Minimals only?

http://www.tug.org/texlive/pretest.html http://www.tug.org/texlive/mirmon/

I assume that the beta version is the latest 2010 version, bugs and all, and that the stable version is the one suggested by Mojca and is close to the one that Taco says will go physical in September.

Yes, Taco only said that DVDs will be sent to members in September.

Will anything else, such as Ruby, be required?

Ruby is not needed for MkIV, but if he is planning to use MKII, you'll want to install Ruby anyway. Mojca

-----Original Message----- From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] On Behalf Of Mojca Miklavec Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 9:21 AM To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best version of ConTeXt On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 13:54, Tom wrote:

From which site should Americans download Tex Live 2010? Minimals only?

http://www.tug.org/texlive/pretest.html http://www.tug.org/texlive/mirmon/

I assume that the beta version is the latest 2010 version, bugs and all, and that the stable version is the one suggested by Mojca and is close to the one that Taco says will go physical in September.

Yes, Taco only said that DVDs will be sent to members in September.

Will anything else, such as Ruby, be required?

Ruby is not needed for MkIV, but if he is planning to use MKII, you'll want to install Ruby anyway. Mojca I get very confused by all the different versions. For starters, what is Tex Live? Is it the full blown Context or is it something else? The TUG site has Tex Live 2009 which I assume is a stable version that is distributed on DVDs to TUG members. I get the impression that other Context "compilers" for lack of a better term exist and that Context Minimals is a stripped down version of a more powerful one. How far off track am I? Tom Benjey 717-258-9733 voice 717-243-0074 fax Twitter: @TomBenjey

On 2010-07-08, Yury G. Kudryashov wrote:

Context Minimals is "context-only" TeX distribution. If you don't need LaTeX, you can use minimals, else install TeXLive 2010 (context Mark IV is broken in TeXLive 2009).

But it is true that minimals sometimes break. TL won't change for at least a year and installing context scheme (or minimal scheme with context package) doesn't install LaTeX and is hardly bigger than minimals with all the engines and fonts. ConTeXt in MikTeX doesn't work any more, at least not until version 2.9 is out. Mojca

-----Original Message----- From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] On Behalf Of Henning Hraban Ramm Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 5:11 PM To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best version of ConTeXt Am 2010-07-08 um 20:54 schrieb Tom:

I get very confused by all the different versions.

You asked for the "best version", so we supposed you'd know several.

For starters, what is Tex Live? Is it the full blown Context or is it something else? The TUG site has Tex Live 2009 which I assume is a stable version that is distributed on DVDs to TUG members. I get the impression that other Context "compilers" for lack of a better term exist and that Context Minimals is a stripped down version of a more powerful one. How far off track am I?

There are only 2 different versions of ConTeXt, called Mark II and Mark IV (MkII, MkIV). They are always distributed together and still share a lot of code. MkII is stable, MkIV is the development version with several enhanced features and a completely new font handling. There are 3 different engines for TeX that work with ConTeXt: pdfTeX, XeTeX and LuaTeX. MkIV works only with LuaTeX, MkII with any. Font setups (typescripts) differ per engine. There are several distributions of TeX that contain ConTeXt, the most notable are TeX Live (jointly published by most TeX User Groups of the world) and MikTeX (Windows only). If you don't need LaTeX, we suggest our ConTeXt minimals distribution - at least for MkIV, because it's always the most up-to-date one. "Minimals" is in no way stripped down (even if it was meant to be a "bare bones" ConTeXt distro), but contains even several tools and free fonts. Most distributions contain all engines. MkII ist called by "texexec" (a Ruby script, i.e. you need Ruby installed), MkIV ist called by "context" (a Lua script, directly executed by LuaTeX). Greetlings from Lake Constance! Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer) Thank you for being so concise, Hraban. This helps a lot. Tom Benjey 717-258-9733 voice 717-243-0074 fax Twitter: @TomBenjey