🚀 go-pugleaf

fermat@fermat.dartmouth.edu (Michael Glenn) writes:

>After installing amstex and amslatex on my NeXT, I discovered several  
>additional files that were not needed.  Namely duplicate copies of files  
>that could easily be replaced with symbolic links.

>In /usr/lib/tex/formats:

>splain.fmt == slitex.fmt (576k)
>lplain.fmt == latex.fmt  (496k)
>plain.fmt  == tex.fmt    (288k)

>In /usr/bin:

>latex  == tex (184k)
>slitex == tex (184k)
>virtex == tex (184k)

>/usr/bin/tex apparently looks at what command line command was used to  
>execute it to determine which .fmt file is loaded in.

>I've removed latex, slitex, virtex, splain.fmt, lplain.fmt, and plain.fmt,  
>and replaced them with symbolic links, a total savings of 1912k, almost 2  
>meg!

All these 'extra' files were hard links.  You managed to replace
them with symbolic links actually using for this slightly more
disk space then before.

They are there because of way TeX is configured on Unix.  If you
call it as 'latex' it executes 'virtex' with a format file 'latex.fmt'.
Similar deal is with other formats (you may make your own).
A default format is 'plain.fmt'.  Names like 'plain.fmt', 'lplain.fmt'
and so on are needed for compatibility with other installations.

If you search for savings in disk space in your TeX font installation
look rather at bitmap images of fonts in /usr/lib/tex/fonts/pk.
For example, if you have only 400dpi printer you may throw away
from your disk all 300pk fonts and their magnifications.   This will
cut disk usage considerably.  More radical step consist of throwing
away all pk's and generating fonts (NeXT TeX is doing that
automatically) only when they are needed.  After a while you will end
up only with bitmaps for fonts YOU are using.  Since this takes time
you may want to initialize the whole process running through TeX
as an overnight batch job a set of "typical" - for your installation -
texts and continuing from that point.

Other method consist of replacing all bitmap fonts with their PostScript
equivalents from Y&Y.

   Michal Jaegermann
   ntomczak@vega.math.ualberta.ca