quarto install

[cderv]

Do we really need a quarto_install() wrapper ?

This is a one time command - so not sure the benefit of running from R.

Also, usually R users needing TinyTex will have tinytex R package, and if chromium needed then it is easy enough to call quarto install directly in terminal

[rundel]

I will just 👍 for this feature.

Context - we are deploying a bunch of containers with quarto and due to how user home directories are created we need to install tinytex when users first login via a custom .First() function. Using tinytex::install_tinytex() works but is a bit less polished experience than quarto install tinytex so we're opting for the later via system2(). This works but still feels a bit clunky.

[cderv]

Thanks for the 👍 that is useful to know the interest.

Using tinytex::install_tinytex() works but is a bit less polished experience than quarto install tinytex

Can you say more about the polished experience ? When installing TinyTeX from R, the tinytex package is the better option to me. Especially because we can get R console logging directly, and it is executing in session.

we're opting for the later via system2(). This works but still feels a bit clunky.

If I were to add quarto::quarto_install() into this package, I believe it would call the same R command you currently do, and this will run in background, with no interaction possible.

So curious about the less polished part so that we improve on both sides.

Thanks !

[rundel]

It is primarily that the tui for quarto install tinytex is more direct and has less output that is likely to freak out a student who has no idea about quarto or latex internals.

> quarto install tinytex
Installing tinytex
[✓] Downloading TinyTex v2024.07.03
[✓] Unzipping TinyTeX-v2024.07.03.tar.gz
[✓] Moving files
[✓] Verifying tlgpg support
[✓] Configuring font paths
[✓] Default Repository: https://mirrors.rit.edu/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet/
Installation successful

is much preferable to

> tinytex::install_tinytex()
trying URL 'https://yihui.org/tinytex/TinyTeX-1.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/octet-stream' length 92770561 bytes (88.5 MB)
==================================================
downloaded 88.5 MB

tlmgr option sys_bin ~/bin
tlmgr: setting option sys_bin to /root/bin.
tlmgr: updating /root/.TinyTeX/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb
tlmgr option repository 'https://ctan.math.illinois.edu/systems/texlive/tlnet'
tlmgr: setting default package repository to https://ctan.math.illinois.edu/systems/texlive/tlnet
tlmgr: updating /root/.TinyTeX/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb
tlmgr update --list
tlmgr: package repository https://ctan.math.illinois.edu/systems/texlive/tlnet (not verified: gpg unavailable)
update:   texlive-scripts    [112k]: local:    72102, source:    72107
You may have to restart your system after installing TinyTeX to make sure ~/bin appears in your PATH variable (https://github.com/rstudio/tinytex/issues/16).

also the creation of the ~/bin directory is something that I would like to avoid in these containers.

[cderv]

the tui for quarto install tinytex is more direct and has less output that is likely to freak out a student

That is really good feedback ! Thanks a lot. We may want to simplify the tinytex UI then too. Or at least provide a less verbose mode 🤔

also the creation of the ~/bin directory is something that I would like to avoid in these containers.

I think quarto could do the same too. In tinytex I think we check ~/.local/bin and if it does not exists, then we create ~/bin if it does not exists itself.

In Quarto we do almost the same. We check /usr/local/bin, ~/.local/bin and "~/bin. For whichever is in the PATH environment variable, we use the first found, create the directory if it does not exists, and use the same.

One important difference is that

• Quarto does not add to tlmgr to PATH by default ( quarto install tinytex --update-path needs to be used)
• tinytex R package does put in PATH by default. tinytex::install_tinytex(add_path = FALSE) needs to be used to not do that, and in that case, to sys_bin setup is done.

Hope it helps