Bug 876851

Summary:	app-text/texlive-core bug in dvipdfmx.cfg affecting pstricks
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Jonas Stein <jstein>
Component:	Current packages	Assignee:	Alexis Ballier <aballier>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	dimpase+gentoo, gentoo, jstein, pacho, sam, tex
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Jonas Stein gentoo-dev

2022-10-12 10:04:27 UTC

via mail from dima.pasechnik@...

-8<-----------------------------------------
Current TeXLive's Gentoo xelatex fails to work with pstricks.
(the symptoms are the same as in
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=250323)

This can be traced down to Gentoo's dvipdfmx.cfg
The problem is in the call to "rungs" on line 159.
It is called with -dSAFER option, but for pstricks to work one needs -dNOSAFER

Note that in the same file there is a comment on the need to use
-dNOSAFER, as follows:

%% In TeX Live, we use the rungs wrapper instead of ps2pdf, becuse we
%% must omit the -dSAFER which ps2pdf specifies: in order for pstricks
%% to work with xetex,
%% /usr/local/texlive/*/texmf-dist/dvips/pstricks/pstricks.pro (for
%% example) needs to be accessed.

Somehow Gentoo ignores it, but it really is crucial.
Upstream has a (recent) workaround.
It provides scripts xetex-unsafe and xelatex-unsafe, for xetex+pstricks+transparency
(cf.
https://github.com/TeX-Live/texlive-source/commit/2e92bef787fa6cc17b87e7cf765216dac7438537)

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Dima Pasechnik 2022-10-12 10:40:33 UTC

Thanks. I realised just now I actually have an account on this tracker.

Comment 2 Sam James archtester

2023-11-13 02:02:04 UTC

I'm not really sure we can safely just backport that ocmmit. It's probably easier to just wait and put more efforts into 2023 (which is ongoing, thanks to flow & negril), unless someone wants to give a precise patch which has been tested that we can apply.