Problem changing TEXMFHOME setting

[Dan]

Hello, thanks for spending time on this problem.


>> Yes, indeed, it writes to the file "texmf.cnf" in the root of the texlive distribution. In my case, it is not writable (/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/texmf.cnf), so I must call the program with superuser privileges: either with "doas" or "sudo". This is how I do it
>>
>
> Why does it write to
>  .../texlive/texmf-dist/texmf.cnf
> ?
>
> What does kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFROOT say?
>
Sorry, my bad,
    tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME '~/texmf/texmf-custom'
writes to "/usr/share/texlive/texm.cnf". TEXMFROOT is "/usr/share/texlive".


>>     $ doas tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME '~/texmf/texmf-custom'
>> This is the output in the terminal
>>     (running on Debian, switching to user mode!)
>>
>
> Huuuuu?? You said you are running Arch???
>
> Did Arch steal my Debian patch and abused it :rofl:
>
No not at all, I am on LinuxMint 21.2 (Victoria), a distribution based on Ubuntu, that is what I said in a previous mail.


>> The variable is actually written to the file "/usr/share/texlive/texmf.cnf"
>>     $ cat /usr/share/texlive/texmf.cnf
>>     TEXMFHOME = ~/texmf/texmf-custom
>> Despite this, the actual value of the variable does not change
>>     $ kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFHOME
>>     /home/my-user/texmf
>>
>
> Probably because that directory is not searched, what does
>
>  kpsewhich -a texmf.cnf
>
> say? These are the files that are found and used.
>
Yes, it is somehow ignored but didn't know how to check, thanks for the suggestion. Here is the output of the command
    $ kpsewhich -a texmf.cnf
    /etc/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
    /usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
    /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/web2c/texmf.cnf
it does not show in the list.

How can I fix this? Where in the documentation of the tlmgr, or TeXLive itself, shall I look into in order to correct this? In case the source of the problem is the packaging of the OS itself, what should I account to write down a useful bug report?

Thanks you very much in advance,

Best regards,


Dan.