unixtex.ftp: Obtaining TeX
==========================

This is ftp://ftp.tug.org/tex/unixtex.ftp, last updated 13 June 2010.  Also available as http://www.tug.org/unixtex.ftp.  Email tex-k@tug.org with comments or questions.

The principal free TeX distribution for Unix-like systems is TeX Live, on the web at http://tug.org/texlive.  The pages there describe many ways to acquire TeX, over the Internet or on physical media, both the sources and precompiled binaries for many systems, either standalone or as part of various operating system distributions.

Web2C, Kpathsea, Dvips, and Dviljk are no longer released as a separate packages.  Their sources are now maintained as part of TeX Live.

The host ftp.cs.stanford.edu is the original source for the files for which Donald Knuth is directly responsible: tex.web, plain.tex, etc. However, unless you want to build your TeX library tree ab initio, it is more reliable and less work to retrieve these files as part of a larger package. In any case, that ftp site is not the canonical source for anything except what was created as part of Stanford TeX project, so do not rely on the other files available there being up-to-date.