Re: [docbook] Re: [SPAM] [docbook] "xmlto pdf" command fails inTeX/LaTeX step on debian system.

[cga2000 <cga2000@optonline.net>]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 03:58:20AM EST, Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> 'cga2000' a écrit :
> > On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 03:26:19AM EST, Hinrich Aue wrote:
> >> I don't much about latex with docbook, but I think that using FOP is the
> >> better way.
> >> Did you try FOP?
> > 
> > Yes, this post was already rather verbose so I did not mention it.
> > 
> > I tried to install the "fop" debian package but couldn't.  It apparently
> > requires (some) java .. but the j2re packages are not "installable" on
> > my debian sarge system.  I've never quite understood what the problem is
> > with java on linux systems but they never seem to get along.
> 
> Java was not provided with Linux distributions (Debian, at least) for a
> long time because of license issues. This is no longer a problem now
> since the license terms were recently changed. But as Sarge predates
> that change you still have to semi-manually install Java.
> Install java-package: it contains a script that will create a deb
> package from a Java .bin archive that you have previously downloaded
> yourself. Then install the created deb package with dpkg and you have
> Java on your system.
> If you need further help I suggest you to google java-package or look
> for a Debian mailing list as this is really starting to get out-of-topic...
> 
> And, BTW, you will have much better results if you render your DocBook
> documents into PDF with the latest FOP 0.93 version. There's no deb
> package for it yet, so you'll have to download it from the FOP [1]
> website, but this is easy and there are binary packages if you don't
> want to build it yourself.
> 
> HTH,
> Vincent
> 
> [1] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/
> 
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On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 11:40:17AM EST, Per Bothner wrote:
> Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> >Java was not provided with Linux distributions (Debian, at least) for a
> >long time because of license issues. This is no longer a problem now
> >since the license terms were recently changed.
> 
> You're a little premature.  Only part of JDK (or JRE) has been released
> as Free Software so far, though Sun s announced that all of JDK will
> be becomes Free Software (modulo complications with libraries that
> have other copyright holders.)
> 
> There is gcj and other Free Java re-implementations that use the
> ClassPath libraries.  Fedora ships that and many Java applications
> built with those tools; I don't know if Debian does.
> -- 
> 	--Per Bothner

Thanks to both.  I am going to check this out on the almost-stable
debian "etch" asap.  See if I can get FOP to work. I somehow vaguely
suspected my problem all had to do with restrictions due to java's
proprietary license terms and debian not going anywhere near anything
that might "taint" its distributions but things do become a lot clearer
when you understand the context.

Naturally, I was extremely disappointed when I found out that while html
transformation worked beautifully and my test document was perfectly
rendered via a mere "xtmlto html" .. the pdf/ps transformation just did
not work.  

I do apologize for the OT-ness of this thread and I am all the more
grateful for your replies.

Thanks,
cga