Packagable ConTeXt LMTX for Linux distributions

Proof of concept x86-64 Linux only. The texmf directory is substantially thinned version of texmf-context (no docs, no fonts, etc.), also the usual texmf-fonts and texmf are missing! Prerelease version of luametatex is used.

For real ConTeXt and installation instructions see the ConTeXt Garden.

Installation instructions

Use make install, but set DESTDIR and PREFIX as you please.

E.g. to create a Linux package you would do something like:

make DESTDIR="$pkgdir" PREFIX=/usr install

To install locally to /usr/local you would run:

make PREFIX=/usr/local install

To create a "portable" (movable) directory called context you can run:

make DESTDIR=context PREFIX= install

Running

Run the installed mtxrun binary with proper arguments. E.g. to run ConTeXt do:

path/to/mtxrun --script context myfile.tex

Configuration

Main things to configure are the directories from which ConTeXt loads files. There are two kinds of these directories:

• "flat" are not recursively searched directories and are applicable to all file types
• "tree" adhere to the TDS standard, the search is recursive, but filetypes have their own prescribed subtrees (e.g. .tex files go into /tex and .bib files to /bibtex)

Flat directories are read from the TEXMFDOTDIR variable (by default ., i.e. the current directory). But in general it is a semicolon (;) separated list of directories (like PATH, but with ;).

Similarly list of TDS trees ("texmf" directories) is read from the TEXMF variable. By default it points only to the texmf directory distributed by this package, which is available as TEXMFCONTEXT.

The variables can be set either in the environment, or in the texmfcnf.lua configuration files. The default configuration file is next to the installed texmf directory. If you want to change the defaults, copy the configuration file texmfcnf.lua file to either ~/.config/context/ (for user configuration) or to /etc/context/ (for system configuration). Then you make changes there. Only one file takes effect (user config file is preferred to the system one).

Other interesting variables to configure are:

• TEXMFCACHE = "$HOME/.cache" , ConTeXt stores cached files in $TEXMFCACHE/luametatex-cache
• OSFONTDIR = "/usr/share/fonts//", the directory with "operating system fonts" (// at the end means search all subdirectories recursively)

If you have say a flat directory with your macros ($HOME/mymacros), a TeX Live TDS tree (/usr/share/texlive/2022/texmf-dist, preferably without ConTeXt to prevent clashes) which you want to use as fallback (e.g. for fonts) and other fonts installed locally under $HOME/.local/share/fonts you can do:

# first search in the current directory, then in `mymacros`
export TEXMFDOTDIR='.;$HOME/mymacros'

# then continue to look into the ConTeXt TDS texmf tree, falling back to the TeX Live one
export TEXMF='$TEXMFCONTEXT;/usr/share/texlive/2022/texmf-dist'

# on top of that if searching for OTF and TTF files, search also local fonts and system fonts
export OSFONTDIR='$HOME/.local/share/fonts//;/usr/share/fonts//'

Or without modifying the shell environment and just changing the variables for this ConTeXt run:

TEXMFDOTDIR='.;$HOME/mymacros' TEXMF='$TEXMFCONTEXT;/usr/share/texlive/2022/texmf-dist' OSFONTDIR='$HOME/.local/share/fonts//;/usr/share/fonts//' path/to/mtxrun --script context myfile.tex

Or the equivalent in the configuration file.

Notice the use of single quotes to prevent expansion in the shell! You want ConTeXt to do the variable expansion (variables from the environment take priority over the ones from configuration files).