[NTG-context] Problem with ConTeXt installation

[Sanjoy Mahajan]

> So I simply copied /root/.texmf-var/web2c/pdfetex/*     /var/lib/texmf/web2c/
> "texexec new.tex" seems to run OK now, without error.
> I'll investigate further.

You run texexec as root, I'm guessing, so that the formats will be
visible to all users.  However, that means they go into root's
.texmf-var/ directory because the TEXFORMATS kpse variable contains
the home-directory .texmf-var before /var/lib/texmf.  Here's how to
check:

$ kpsewhich --expand-path='$TEXFORMATS'
.:/home/sanjoy/.texmf-var/web2c:/home/sanjoy/texmf/web2c:/var/lib/texmf/web2c:/usr/local/share/texmf/web2c:/usr/share/texmf/web2c:/usr/share/texmf-tetex/web2c

Yup, ~/.texmf-var/web2c comes first.

That's due to these lines in /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf, at least on my
Ubuntu (teTeX 3.0) system:

TEXMF = {$TEXMFCONFIG,$TEXMFVAR,$TEXMFHOME,$TEXMFSYSCONFIG,!!$TEXMFSYSVAR,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFMAIN,!!$TEXMFDIST}

TEXFORMATS = .;$TEXMF/web2c/{$engine,}

The TEXMFVAR is short for $HOME/.texmf-var and is what means the
formats go in /root/.texmf-var/.  So, you need to change TEXFORMATS
for the texexec run, telling it to place them in /var/lib/texmf:

# TEXFORMATS='/var/lib/texmf/web2c/{$engine,}' texexec --make --all

Or slightly more general, in case TEXMFSYSVAR changes someday from
/var/lib/texmf (note all the horrid quoting):

# TEXFORMATS=`kpsewhich --expand-path='$TEXMFSYSVAR'`'/web2c/{$engine,}' \
  texexec --make --all

I just tried it as root, and it seemed to work -- I got brand-new
formats in /var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdfetex:

# ls /var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdfetex/*.fmt
/var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdfetex/cont-nl.fmt
/var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdfetex/mptopdf.fmt
/var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdfetex/cont-en.fmt

> # for f in `kpsewhere -engine=pdfetex cont-en.fmt`; do ls -l ${f}; done

Or slightly simpler (using -U to preserve the order produced by
kpsewhere):

# ls -lU `kpsewhere -engine=pdfetex cont-en.fmt`

or

# kpsewhere -engine=pdfetex cont-en.fmt | xargs ls -Ul

-Sanjoy

`Never underestimate the evil of which men of power are capable.'
         --Bertrand Russell, _War Crimes in Vietnam_, chapter 1.