Decision Guidance ⇒ MikTeX and TeXLive Windows Disk Space

[MSchenker]

Hi,

I have been using TeXLive on Debian Linux for a long while. Doing my document on Linux requires me to VNC to my Linux box and I want to try to use LaTeX on my Windows laptop now. Can someone please advise me on the likely disk space required for both MikTeX and TeXLive on Windows (Or any other good TeX distribution)

Here are the packages I use:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper{article}                                                                     
\usepackage{a4wide}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[bookmarks=true,colorlinks=,linkcolor=,breaklinks=false]{hyperref}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{lastpage}
\usepackage{comment}
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{color} 
\usepackage{listings}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage[]{glossaries}
\usepackage[toc,page]{appendix}
\usepackage{rcs}
\usepackage{paralist}

I also want to try out PerlTeX in future (but have a Perl installation already on Windows). I here MikTeX is more user friendly and only requires space for the packages needed, but TeXLive is more Unix like? Can I get away with a say 200Mb or so? Thanks for any advice.

M

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi,

I'm very satisfied with TeX Live. Earlier I used MiKTeX and can confirm that it's very user-friendly. I prefer TeX Live because it's cross-platform, and I'm using it since it provides package management, which MiKTeX did even earlier. On Linux, of course, I used TeX Live as well.

If you start the advanced installer, you can choose what you would like to install, the required space depends on it.


You could install further packages later. Here are also installation instructions with screenshots: Getting Started with LaTeX.

Stefan

[MSchenker]

Thanks, I think I'll go with TeXLive with the advanced installer and it shows the disk space needed for packages you select.

I also like the way TeXLive seems to stick everything in one place rather than litter the Windows system directories with all kinds of stuff. That makes it easy to remove if I run out of space.