TeX Live 2019 - bugs and updates

Most of TeX Live is a redistribution of packages and programs from elsewhere, primarily CTAN. So, the target for bug reports varies according to the nature of the problem.

• If you have problems with a TeX document, e.g., a package is no longer behaving as it used to, report it to the package maintainer. As a rule, package-specific fixes are not installed directly in TL; instead, new versions of packages should be uploaded to CTAN.
• If you have questions about using TeX, or need help with TeX, please use the general help resources.
• To report a bug in TeX Live installation or infrastructure, email the tex-live@tug.org mailing list (archives).
• For security-related reports, please use the tlsecurity@tug.org mailing list (private archives).

Highlights of changes in this release; details for pdfTeX, LuaTeX, XeTeX, MetaPost, dvips.

If you need to use alternate binaries, the custom binary support in the TL installer may be useful.

Known issues in TeX Live 2019

• The binaries for most platforms are built on newer systems than in 2017 and earlier; for example, the x86_64-linux binaries now require glibc 2.14. This is because the core libraries ICU and poppler now require C++11, and it is not feasible to compile with that on the older systems we have used in the past.

  Fortunately, Nelson Beebe has been able to build binary sets on older x86_64-linux systems, among many others. Links and more information are on the custom binary page.

• If you want to build a subset of TL without C++11 (presumably because you have an older compiler), it is necessary to (re)move the parts of the source tree which require it:
  rm -rf libs/icu libs/poppler libs/graphite2 texk/dvisvgm
  ./Build --disable-all-pkgs --enable-... # or whatever
  else the configure run will fail. More build info.

• Notes for Raspberry Pi users explain some details for that platform, notably potential issues with /tmp storage.

• Windows XP is no longer supported. In general, on Windows, installation and/or various scripts and programs may fail for a variety of reasons. See the TeX Live on Windows page for some symptoms and remedies.

• Upgrade notes from Overleaf go into detail about many package changes and incompatibilities; these notes are related to TL18, not TL19, but are of likely interest nonetheless.

Bug archives for the previous release and earlier years remain online (under systems/texlive).

Notable changes

As always, there are pervasive updates to packages and programs. We can't list them all, but here are major user-visible changes in the principal programs:

kpathsea (full Kpathsea news)

More consistent brace expansion and path splitting (details in the Kpathsea manual); new variable TEXMFDOTDIR instead of hardwired . in paths allows for easily searching additional or sub-directories (comments in texmf.cnf).

eptex, euptex

New primitives \readpapersizespecial and \expanded.

luatex (full LuaTeX news)

• Lua 5.3 now used, with concomitant arithmetic and interface changes.
• The homegrown library pplib is used to read pdf files, thus eliminating the dependency on poppler (and the need for C++); Lua interface changed accordingly.

metapost (full MetaPost news)

• r-mpost command name recognized as an alias for invocation with the --restricted option, and added to the list of restricted commands available by default.
• Minimum precision now 2 for decimal and binary mode.
• Binary mode no longer available in MPlib but still available in standalone MetaPost.

pdftex (full pdfTeX news)

New primitive \expanded; if new primitive parameter \pdfomitcharset is set to 1, the /CharSet string omitted from the PDF output, since it cannot feasibly be guaranteed correct, as required by PDF/A-2 and PDF/A-3.

xetex (full XeTeX news)

New primitives \expanded, \creationdate, \elapsedtime, \filedump, \filemoddate, \filesize, \resettimer, \normaldeviate, \uniformdeviate, \randomseed; extend \Ucharcat to produce active characters. More in the XeTeX manual.

tlmgr (full tlmgr news)

Support curl as a download program; use lz4 and gzip before xz for backups, if available; prefer system-provided binaries over TL-provided binaries for compressor and download programs, unless the environment variable TEXLIVE_PREFER_OWN is set.

install-tl

New option -gui (with no argument) is the default on Windows and Macs, and invokes a new Tcl/TK GUI, as described above.

MacTeX

x86_64-darwin now supports 10.12 and higher (Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave); x86_64-darwinlegacy supports 10.6 and newer. The spell checker Excalibur is no longer included, since it requires 32-bit support.

Utilities

• cwebbin is now the CWEB implementation in TeX Live, with support for more language dialects, and including the ctwill program to make mini-indexes.
• chkdvifont: report font information from DVI files, also from tfm/ofm, vf, gf, pk.
• dvispc: make a DVI file page-independent wrt specials.

Platforms

Removed sparc-solaris.