Get yourself a minimal TeX Live

Minimal TeX Live on GNU/Linux
Minimal TeX Live on Android
Adding packages to your minimal TeX Live

Minimal TeX Live on GNU/Linux

Before staring, some important remarks for you.

The procedure described here installs TeX Live into your $HOME. TeX Live is often located in /usr/local/bin/texlive or something similar.
It is recommended to read the section Adding packages to your minimal TeX Live and decide if it is worth.

Installation

The installation process is thoroughly handled by install-texlive. Running it without any parameter is enough:

$ ./install-texlive

(Note) We list here the defaults and how to change them.

The directory where all of TeX Live is allocated is ~/texlive by default. If you prefer another location, pass the option --texdir HERE.
You can select the scheme to install, by passing --scheme SCHEME. Here, SCHEME could be for example: minimal (the default), basic, small, medium, full, etc...
At the end of the installation an appropriate file that adds to your paths the ones of TeX Live is created. By default, the file is ~/.tlrc, but you can choose any path you prefer, using --tlrc HERE.

Normally, the minimal installation takes a couple of minutes. Afterwards

$ source ~/.bashrc

(Important) When the installation process terminates, read what the script says: in fact, there might be some work left to you.

(Note) Another script, namely tlmgr-install-extras, installs extra packages. It is not run by the installer, so you it is up to you. There, you will find a list of packages and some comments too; in particular, you will notice that some of them are strongly recommended. Read and edit it as per your needs.

Uninstall TeX Live

The installation script generates an appropriate uninstaller, so use it if you want to (or have to) get rid of TeX Live:

$ ~/.texlive-uninstaller

Minimal TeX Live on Android

We need Termux, for TeX Live will be installed within that environment. Always keep an eye on the TeX Live page of Termux, just in case drastic changes occurs and this repo is not updated.

Install

Open Termux and issue the command

$ termux-install-texlive

The script manages both installation, post installation process and applies some patches to make it work within the Termux environment.

(Important) The script is a modification of installer.sh which can be found here. This piece of code is distributed under the same licence of that work.

(Note) Currently, this installer doesn't allow users to customize the installation, as you can for any other GNU/Linux.

You can use tlmgr-install-extras in this context as well.

Uninstall

termux-uninstall-texlive removes TeX Live and all the related stuff. You may further clean your environment using

$ apt autoremove

For this, you need to install apt in your Termux (run pkg install apt).

Adding packages to your minimal TeX Live

As we said, we have installed a minimal TeX Live: that is you are supposed to install even the most basic packages. Below there are some useful recommendations.

Install manually

We use tlmgr to install packages for TeX Live:

$ tlmgr install PACKAGE

Now, assume you run:

$ pdflatex main.tex

If the TeX engine complains it cannot find some file:

! LaTeX Error: File `FILENAME' not found.

then you can get the name of the package containing it with tlmgr:

$ tlmgr search --global --file "/FILENAME"

which will give you a list of packages containing it.

(Attention) The / is important, make sure you type it.

It may be useful to create a function that searches packages for a given filename and installs them for you: open ~/.bashrc and copy the following lines

# Interrogate CTAN for packages containing a given file.
tlmgr_search () {
  tlmgr search --global --file "/$1" | perl -lne '/(.+?):$/ && print $1'
}

# Install ALL the packages listed by `tlmgr_search`.
tlmgr_search_install () {
  tlmgr_search "$1" | xargs tlmgr install
}

This provides you two new functions you can use once you have sourced ~/.bashrc, even though you will likely use only the latter:

$ tlmgr_search_install FILENAME

(Attention) It is not required / anymore.

Another hint for you. Suppose preamble.tex is the file where you have declared the documentclass and the packages which are used. Open ~/.bashrc and copy the following piece of code

# Install the packages required in the preamble.
tlmgr_install_preamble () {
  perl -lne '/\\(?:usepackage|documentclass).*?\{(.+?)\}/ && print $1;' $1 | xargs tlmgr install
}

and source ~/.bashrc. Thus

$ tlmgr_install_preamble preamble.tex

will install the packages required. Take in consideration this small tool when you know you have to install many packages.

TeX Live on the fly

In case you get rabbitholed, here are some tools that automate the boring task described above.

In ./flytex you can find some scripts, all doing the same thing: understanding and installing packages required by a project but that are not present in your minimal TeX Live.

The programs of ./flytex have not an official name yet, and sometimes we will happen to refer to them all as flytex.

These programs are rather workaraounds to enrich TeX Live as needed: as you have all the packages needed installed, you can return to how your usual workflow. Indeed, these programs should not be used more than they are supposed to.

For instance, if you run

$ lualatex --synctex=1 --shell-escape main.tex

then just prepend flytex and forget the options:

$ flytex lualatex main.tex

To install flytex just copy one of the scripts in ./flytex to any location you want and make it executable: for example

$ cp ./flytex/flytex.py ~/.local/bin/flytex
$ chmod u+x ~/.local/bin/flytex

(Just make sure ~/.local/bin is present in $PATH.)

(Attention) You may have to run flytex more than once, because dependencies may be quite intricate.

indrjo/minimal-texlive-installer