ChapterZero

I’m installing the teTeX distribution, which is huge!, on my website right now, so I can conduct some online mathematical experiments I’ve been storing in the back of my mind for a long while. The latest: a web front end to Axiom, or some other free CAS, so math people like myself can indulge ourselves even when we don’t have access to Maple on our desktops.

I really hope this works, and doesn’t piss off my hosts too much. I can see why they don’t have TeX installed- who would use it, for the most part– but I need it to make the max of my site. The things that could potentially piss them off are: the huge and quick downloads that brought the source code to the machine, the long and probably processor cycle intensive compilation process, and the space being taken up. But I figure, the processor usage spike is only going to be this once, and a lot of the space will be freed up once TeX is in its final binary form, and I delete the source.

Anyhow, cross your fingers and hope with me, for a very TeXtual future.

Just remembered: watching TeX compile is reminding me of just about every episode of Alias where Marshal has to corrupt someone’s software, and all you see is a Make/AutoConf script chugging away.

Possibly relevant posts:

• The Dark is Rising unto the silver screen (9/15/2007)
• Some thoughts on shareware (7/14/2007)
• Volume Visualization (12/27/2005)