Installing TeXlive

Installing the distribution TeXlive.

1 General information

• TeX Live — the most complete LaTeX distribution supported by the TeX community.
• Supports a large number of operating systems.
• Developed since 1996.
• Based on the teTeX distribution.
• MacTeX — a variant for MacOS.
• Main page: https://www.tug.org/texlive/.
• TeX Live — is a distribution with continuous updates as part of the annual version of the distribution.

2 Installation from distribution packages

• Ubuntu:

apt install texlive-full

3 Network installation on one computer

3.1 Installation using distribution scripts

• Links on the site are to mirrors. The mirror is selected automatically.
• Download the installer:
• Unix: https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl-unx.tar.gz

cd /tmp/
wget https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl-unx.tar.gz

• Windows: https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl-windows.exe
• For Windows: run the executable file and install.
• For Linux
• Unpack the downloaded file:

tar xzvf install-tl-unx.tar.gz

• Go to the unpacked directory and run the installer:

cd install-tl-[0-9]*
sudo ./install-tl

• It is recommended to create links to executable files in the /usr/local/bin directory. To do this, in the console version of the utility, select the O option, and then L. To return to the previous menu, use R.

3.2 Installing with a package manager

• Windows. Use the Chocolatey package manager (see Package manager for Windows. Chocolatey).

choco install texlive

4 Network installation on multiple computers

4.1 File server

• A copy of the TeX Live archive is stored on the file server.
• We store it in the directory /com/lib/portage/extras/texlive (of course, you can choose any).
• We share this directory via NFS (for example).
• Let’s make a script for daily download:

#!/bin/bash
# /etc/cron.daily/texlive-rsync-tree

RSYNC_MIRROR=rsync://mirrors.mi.ras.ru/CTAN/

mkdir -p /com/lib/portage/extras/texlive
rsync -rltpD -v -HS --delete ${RSYNC_MIRROR}/systems/texlive/tlnet/ /com/lib/portage/extras/texlive

4.2 Clients

4.2.1 Installation

• First, install manually on clients. To do this, run on the client:

/com/lib/portage/extras/texlive/install-tl --repository=/com/lib/portage/extras/texlive

4.3 Update

• To update, use the script on the client:

#!/bin/bash

if [[ -d /com/lib/portage/extras/texlive ]]
then
tlmgr update --repository=/com/lib/portage/extras/texlive --self
tlmgr update --repository=/com/lib/portage/extras/texlive --all
else
tlmgr update --self
tlmgr update --all
fi
tlmgr path add

5 Updating to the next version of TeXlive

• It is recommended to install the new version of TeXlive separately.
• But you can do a manual update using an existing installation.
• Let’s assume that our architecture is x86_64-linux.
• If you have installed symbolic links to system directories (via installer option or tlmgr path add), remove them:

tlmgr path remove

• Move the entire TeXlive directory to match the new version, for example:

mv /usr/local/texlive/2024/ /usr/local/texlive/2025

• Remove package backups:

rm /usr/local/texlive/2025/tlpkg/backups/*

• Create links to executables:

/usr/local/texlive/2025/bin/x86_64-linux/tlmgr path add

• Download the latest version of the script update-tlmgr-latest.sh:

wget https://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/update-tlmgr-latest.sh -O /tmp/update-tlmgr-latest.sh

• Run the script:

sh /tmp/update-tlmgr-latest.sh -- upgrade

• If you do not want to use the default repository for downloading new files, then replace it:

tlmgr option repository <reponame>

• Update the TeXlive package manager:

tlmgr update --self

• Update TeXlive packages:

tlmgr update --all

• Set symbolic links to executables in system directories (/usr/local/bin):

tlmgr path add

• You can recreate the cache lualatex under the user:

mv ~/.texlive2024 ~/.texlive2025
luaotfload-tool -fu

• If you don’t do this, the cache will be recreated on the first run of lualatex.