Comment 10 for bug 712521

I should point out that, with the package manager tlmgr (new since the 2010 version), there's no real need to group individual TeX Live packages into debian ones, as was done with Live 2009. Instead, the user can maintain a Live package system orthogonal to Ubuntu's.

Having two package managers is not really an issue here, since tlmgr would only install stuff into the texlive folder anyway (look how well it works for people who've manually installed Tex Live 2011). As for apt-get dependency issues, the fact is that most of texlive is essentially a bunch of "addons" to a very few number of essential programs. [Sane] external programs would not be referencing these addons, but only the basic texlive features. Thus, there's no real need for us to manage those addons into a crazy number of debian packages, when tlmgr was designed to manage them in the first place. (Any minor exception is utterly overwhelmed by the negative consequences of all of us being 2 years behind.)

In short, we should just merge the current mess of dependencies into just one - texlive2011 - and be done with it. This can even be done easily (as a dirty hack) by making the texlive2011 package satisfy them all, when really it just gives the installer to the user.

I mention this because it seems that we don't have the time or manpower for the more conservative solution - 2 years on, we have to start considering the alternatives. The current version of Ubuntu's Tex Live is so old that, far from stability being the issue, bugs are. Worst of all, these are not only bugs that should've been fixed, but that also WERE fixed. Ubuntu is losing its grace in this important area.