teTeX

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teTeX
Basic data

Maintainer Development stopped
developer Thomas Esser
Publishing year 1994
Current  version 3.0
(February 6, 2005)
operating system unixoid system
category TeX - Distribution
License free licenses
tug.org/tetex

teTeX is a distribution of the text typesetting system TeX and the software package LaTeX based on it , which was published in November 1994 and maintained until May 2006. The software package developed by Thomas Esser and based on the TeX implementation Web2c, distributed free of charge and under a free license, became one of the best-known TeX distributions during this time. After the support for teTeX was discontinued, Esser recommended that users switch to the TeX Live distribution, which has been available since 1996 and was originally based on teTeX .

scope

In addition to numerous LaTeX packages, teTeX contains the TeX extensions pdfTeX for the direct generation of PDF files and easier integration of images, e-TeX , Omega and Aleph for the use of Unicode and Sinistrograden fonts, various output programs ("DVI drivers") for Creation of PostScript files (dvips), HP LaserJet print files (dvilj), PDF files (dvipdfm) and PNG or GIF image files (dvipng), the xdvi preview program , the Texinfo and ConTeXt systems and the MakeIndex programs for Creation of subject indexes and BibTeX for reference management, as well as programs required for TeX to generate fonts such as Metafont and MetaPost .

history

While studying mathematics and computer science at the University of Hanover , Thomas Esser had a part-time job in a group for databases and information systems. In this position he was responsible for Unix system administration and for writing documentation in LaTeX . The laborious maintenance of the TeX distribution on the university server and the desire of numerous students to also install TeX on their private Linux computers finally led him to develop his own distribution. The development goals of teTeX included the exclusive use of free software , easy compilation, installation and adaptation to individual needs.

During the development, Esser did not limit himself to putting together existing TeX packages, fonts and other components, but also wrote some essential scripts to facilitate the interoperability of various components and to standardize the programming interfaces, e.g. for different driver programs.

The first teTeX version from November 1994 was only available for the GNU / Linux operating system , but was recorded and made available for download from the well-known FTP servers tsx-11.mit.edu and sunsite.unc.edu . Esser soon set about improving portability to other systems. In the mid-2000s, the package was available for all common Unix operating systems.

The last published teTeX distribution was version 3.0 from February 2005. In an interview from June 2006, Esser explained that the main reason for not continuing the project was that it took too long. Each new published version of teTeX cost him more time than the previous one.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Dorothee Wiegand: Version 3.0 of the free text typesetting system teTeX is ready. In: heise online . February 9, 2005, accessed July 22, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Jürgen Fenn: TeX Distribution TeX Live 2008 published. In: heise online . September 3, 2008, accessed July 22, 2020 .
  3. ^ Karl Berry: The TeX Live Guide — 2020. In: tug.org. TeX Users Group , March 2020, accessed on July 22, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b Thomas Esser: The teTeX Homepage. In: tug.org. TeX Users Group , May 2006, accessed July 22, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Thomas Esser: teTEX Manual. (PDF; 259 KBytes) In: tug.org. TeX Users Group , January 2005, accessed July 22, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Dave Walden: Thomas Esser. In: tug.org. TeX Users Group , June 5, 2006, accessed July 22, 2020 (interview).
  7. ↑ a b tetex - Obsolete TeX distribution for Unix / Linux. In: Comprehensive TeX Archive Network . Retrieved July 22, 2020 (English).