Install Tex Live 2016 on Ubuntu 16.04

Oct 31, 2016

LaTeX Ubuntu 16.04

warning

This post is more than 5 years old. While math doesn't age, code and operating systems do. Please use the code/ideas with caution and expect some issues due to the age of the content. I am keeping these posts up for archival purposes because I still find them useful for reference, even when they are out of date!

On Ubuntu 14.04 I went through a fairly involved procedure to get the current TeX Live (TeX Live 2013 at that time) installed because it was not in the standard repository. However, it seems that there is now a much easier way to get TeX Live 2016: J Fernyhough has put together a TeX Live 2016 PPA -- kudos to him! (sorry, no longer exists)

Note:

2022, Sep This post seems completely irrelevant at this point as the ppa no longer exists. I guess I will have to investigate current options in the future.

2017, June The original ppa used in this post seems to be transitioning to TeX Live 2017, breaking my setup in the process. So, I will purge this ppa and try to install the TeX Live 2016 ppa. So, the two options are:

  1. If you are installing TeX Live 2016 for the first time on Ubuntu 16.04 *and did not use the previous version of this post* (see historical reference below), use the first-time install section below.
  2. If you, like me, installed Tex Live using the ppa:jonathonf/texlive and are now having problems, use the switching to new ppa section.

first-time install

This section assumes you are doing a fresh install of Tex Live 2016 and have not used older install instructions. Be sure to have a good internet connection (the install is GBs) and type: 

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/texlive-2016
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install texlive-full

That should be it-- a very complete and current install of TeX Live 2016 is installed.

switching to new ppa

This section assumes that you have previously installed TeX Live 2016 on Ubuntu 16.04 using ppa:jonathonf/texlive instead of the ppa used above-- I did this in the original post-- see the historical reference below. If that's true, this is what I did to update:

purge ppa--

First, I will purge ppa:jonathonf/texlive following standard procedures-- 

$ sudo apt install ppa-purge
$ sudo ppa-purge ppa:jonathonf/texlive

This gave errors...hmm; unmet dependencies.

new ppa--

Install ppa:jonathonf/texlive-2016 as follows: 

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/texlive-2016
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install texlive-full

This still results in errors, but we can fix them as follows:

resolving errors--

Following the guidance in the error output, try a fix install: 

$ sudo apt-get -f install

followed by 

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

This should fix the unmet dependencies issues and running an apt-get update should work without error.

Finally, try the install again: 

$ sudo apt install texlive-full

and the install should proceed as normal-- again, this is a large (GBs) install.

historical reference

Don't do this, left for reference

Given this new PPA the install is very simple-- just add the PPA, update and install following How to Install TeX Live 2016 in Ubuntu 16.04, 14.04 However, note that this is a huge install (GBs). So, make sure to do try this when you have access to a decent connection, and run the following at the terminal: 

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/texlive
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install texlive-full

That's it! Much better than the manual procedure I used in the past.

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