Conversion Tools ⇒ Just want to use PDFLaTeX

[rwhenderson]

This seems like it should be simple but it's driving me nuts. I just want to use pdflatex. I installed pdftex on my linux system (pdftex-1.40.10 package) but there is no pdflatex. My searches indicated maybe it's in TeX Live so I ran the install-tl-20110315 install package, and it proceeded to install hundreds of packages that I'm sure I don't need so I aborted it after 10 minutes while still installing stuff starting with 'a'.

[localghost]

It could be helpful if you tell us which specific Linux distribution you are running so that another user might be able to help in this regard.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[rwhenderson]

I am running Centos 5.5.

[localghost]

[…] My searches indicated maybe it's in TeX Live so I ran the install-tl-20110315 install package, and it proceeded to install hundreds of packages that I'm sure I don't need so I aborted it after 10 minutes while still installing stuff starting with 'a'.

If that's offered by the package manager of your Linux distribution, you can install it and should not abort the installation process. A TeX system consists of several hundreds (if not thousands) of files which are necessary. It seems that this package will install a full Tex Live system. Afterwards check on the terminal if the installation has been successful.

Code: Select all

pdflatex -version

As an alternative you can try to install TeX Live from DVD.

[rwhenderson]

Thanks. My systemadmin installed tetek-latex and that took care of it.

[sommerfee]

My sysadmin installed tetek-latex and that took care of it.

Do you mean teTeX? This one is at least 6 years old, better use TeXlive instead.