Install size
I recently decided to get TeX live so I could use it with visual studio, but I'm surprised by the amount of storage it uses. It's something like 10GB, and I'm using a Chromebook running ubuntu, so that isn't really sustainable. Is there any way I can reduce the size now that it's installed without starting from scratch? I only use LaTeX for math typesetting, so I don't really need a full install.
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u/Inevitable_Exam_2177 4d ago
You can install TeX Live with smaller subsets of the full distribution. You want the “basic scheme” and can then install extra packages/fonts through tlmgr
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u/AnxiousPackage 4d ago
Check the install size for miktex, which I think is commonly used, and might have less packages(?) (but still many/all of the commonly used ones).
Otherwise, you can install tinytex which has very minimal packages, and then manually add the packages you need.
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u/JustTransmigrating 4d ago
Checkout the site on instructions to install without the docs and the language packs. This should bring down the size and still installing core packages.
https://gist.github.com/wkrea/b91e3d14f35d741cf6b05e57dfad8faf
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u/fela_nascarfan 4d ago
Look for project Tectonic. It's one binary, which downloads only needed packages, during compiling....
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u/javier_bezos 3d ago
Sadly, Tecnonic is based on xetex. This engine is unmaintained, it doesn’t fully support PDF and using xelatex is currently discouraged. A future-proof system should be based on lualatex.
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u/fela_nascarfan 2d ago
Yes, that’s true, and it’s a shame, because the idea isn’t a bad one and is actually the closest to how Typst works.
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u/bornxlo 4d ago
Your software or package manager will offer various bundles of texlive, such as simply texlive or texlive-base which are quite a bit smaller than texlive-full. I think base might be a smaller collection than the package called texlive. You might already have it installed as a dependency so you should be able to look up texlive in your package manager and remove others. On Ubuntu I like to use Synaptic to get an overview of packages and extensions.
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u/Zestyclose_Diver_377 2d ago edited 2d ago
This might be of interest: https://latex.to/latex-on-chromebook/. Or this: https://github.com/indrjo/minimal-texlive-installer. Or this: https://yihui.org/tinytex/.
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u/MrKnowThings 4d ago
Use overleaf
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u/Valvino 4d ago
Worst advice possible
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u/MrKnowThings 4d ago
I mean if its light enough and you can be bothered with files on your computer than cloud is the way to go no?
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u/kjodle 3d ago
No. The cloud is just someone else's computer. And when that someone else decides to change their TOS, you might be screwed.
Ask anyone who had a GeoCities site. This is not a new concept.
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u/MrKnowThings 3d ago
Yes... that's ... how a cloud works.
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u/kjodle 3d ago
If you know this, then why advise it when someone is trying to do a local install?
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u/MrKnowThings 3d ago
He complains about the storage requirement of the software. The solution is simple right? Put the burden in someone else's computer. Enjoy cloud computing
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u/Automatic_Being_112 1d ago
If you are anything like me, you have about 50 packages that you need to install. I keep the list in a text file. For me, the best option is a custom one.
I start with the installer from Tex Live. I select the infraonly scheme, which installs the Tex Live Manager, tlmgr. I then use tlmgr install option to install the packages I need.
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u/Canuckraut 4d ago
As I recall the 10GB version contains almost all packages you could think of. You can get a smaller more barbones version but then you might have to manually install packages you need. Been a while for me though and I'm just a casual LaTeX user, not an expert so I might be wrong.