[tex-k] Latex

[Karl Berry]

Hi Angelyn,

    I am in a superuser/korn shell;

Best not to be root.

    fmtutil: format 'latex' not available.

It would seem the file fmtutil.cnf is probably not being found.
(The current teTeX gives a better error msg in this case.)

    !I cant find the file 'latex.ltx'.

Apparently your setup can't find any files at all.

    But the following files are available below;

Ok, so either you have environment variables set, or you have a
texmf.cnf being found which points to the wrong directories, or you're
invoking binaries from somewhere else which doesn't have the files, or
some other problem.

env KPATHSEA_DEBUG=-1 initex latex.ltx 
should print voluminous output about finding (or not finding, in your
case) files, exactly where it is looking and why, etc.

As Robin suggested, updating to the current teTeX is probably your best
option.  I hope that is feasible.

    May I ask what is the syntax on how to generate this latex.fmt file?

For the record, the answer is something like:
initex latex.ltx \\dump
... but this does not seem to be your problem.

HTH,
karl