Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
First of all let’s clear up a small problem. Those of you using TexStudio may have experienced a problem with the icons not appearing in the menu bar. This is fixed by installing libqt4-svg:
sudo apt-get install libqt4-svg
This is one of those secrets that you have to dig for, but the LaTeX community does have the answer.
XUbuntu, LaTeX, and the Raspberry Pi 2
I have installed the XUbuntu image for the Raspberry Pi 2 that is available from the Ubuntu website: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RaspberryPi
The link above takes you to an easy-to-follow recipe to install the image on to an SD card. You may want to review the commands for Fdisk before you start, as you will be using Fdisk on the command-line and it is not something most of us are used to. Fear not, just make sure you are writing to the right disk, and, if anything goes wrong with the install, gparted will come to the rescue. You will not destroy the SD card.
XUbuntu On The Raspberry Pi 2 Is Fantastic.
I have installed Tex-live on the Rpi2 as well as the LaTeX editors Gummi and TexStudio, and both have worked flawlessly. Now, compared to my Dell Optiplex 755 with 2 gigs of RAM, the Rpi2 is a bit slower, but it is not a show-stopper.
Playing some YouTube videos can be a problem, and some websites can crash the system, but it is a quick automatic reboot. IMHO, you can use the Rpi2 as a real computer, and, with no moving parts, it runs silently, and since it draws less than 10 watts of power, you can leave it powered on. Best of all, you can compose in LaTeX on it.
I digress, back to LaTeX.
LaTeX In The Cloud
In previous articles, I have mentioned a number of LaTeX editors that you can download to your computer to create documents. A relatively new way of composing in LaTeX is an online service that provides a LaTeX editor in the Cloud.
Overleaf and ShareLaTeX are two of the best online LaTex editors that I have seen.
OverLeaf (https://www.overleaf.com/) is a re-launch of WriteLatex which is an online LaTeX editor that has been around for a while. There is also ShareLaTex (https://www.sharelatex.com/).
Best of all, they all provide a very good service which is free. Overleaf and ShareLatex offer extra service plans starting at $8.00 per month, but the free service is as good as what you can do with a LaTeX editor at home.
Both of the Cloud LaTeX editing sites offer an extensive collection of templates for you to use as a starting point for your project. It is a great way to learn LaTeX as the templates have lots of commands built in, and you can see how they work. There is auto-completion of commands in both online services, but TexStudio can be a little more helpful if you can't remember how the command starts or goes.
So why would anyone want to use a LaTeX editor running on your own computer such as TexStudio? All applications that you use in the Cloud are dependent on an Internet connection to work or give you access to your files. Some of us are not too comfortable with that; I like the independence of having my files on my own computer. It is a great theory, working on your portable computer from anywhere, any place that has WiFi, but we both know how spotty public WiFi can be.
I also have to admit that editing my LaTeX files in the Cloud has the advantage to work on the same file from any one of my four computers. Also, if I was working on a project with someone else, that person could log in to the service and edit the file as well.
Fortunately, you can download your files from both sites and you can cut and paste to and from your computer. So you are not locked in to any one of the services.
I have logged into both of these online LaTeX editors with my Raspberry Pi 2, and it worked very well – again kudos for the Raspberry Pi 2.
Instructional Videos
In an earlier article I mentioned that there are plenty of instructional videos about LaTeX. I found a new set recently and even though the video was recorded on a MacIntosh with a plain text editor, the videos are excellent. The videos focus on the commands that you type and not on any particular editor. Go to YouTube and look for the videos uploaded by Alexander Baran-Harper. These videos take out the steep slope of the so called LaTeX learning curve, and are presented with crisp clear images and at a good pace.
Until next time enjoy exploring LaTeX.