Ubuntu – Upgrading Tex Live from 2015 to 2016 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

1. Download the "netinstaller" for TeXLive install-tl-unx.tar.gz from any CTAN mirror, e.g. this one.

   This "netinstaller" is not a full download, but just a small executable and will download all packages from the internet based on the requirements you set later. For more information, see the install guide.

2. Extract it somewhere, e.g. in ~/texlive/2014.

   mkdir ~/texlive/2014
   cd ~/texlive/2014
   tar -xf /path/to/install-tl-unx.tar.gz
   cd install-tl-20140831 # depends on your installer version, adjust to your situation
   

3. Run the install-tl binary with root privileges, e.g. (adjust to your situation):

   sudo ./install-tl
   

   Note: If you have a single-user machine, or don't have root privileges, I would recommend installing to your home directory instead (omit sudo in the previous command). The reason is that commands like tlmgr (see below) will not work out of the box if they are run with sudo, see Setting TeX Live path for root for more information.

   Optionally:

   • Add the -select-repository option in order to select a CTAN mirror nearby before downloading anything.
   • Add the -gui=perltk option to use a GUI installer. Install the perl-tk package first! (sudo apt-get install perl-tk) See the screenshot below how it should look like.
   • Configure only specific collections by choosing the menu option C to save bandwidth and space. Be warned: the default set of 47 collections will yield more than 2GB of traffic and disk usage. You can always install more collections later with the TeXLive package manager (tlmgr) and the collection--prefixed meta-packages.

4. Choose I for install in the menu. (If not in GUI mode)

   It installs in /usr/local/texlive/2014 by default.

5. The installer output suggests to adjust some environment variables. Do so by editing your ~/.profile (or ~/.bashrc if you like) and add the following lines:

   TEXDIR="/usr/local/texlive/2014"
   export PATH=$TEXDIR/bin/i386-linux:$PATH    # for 32-bit installation
   export PATH=$TEXDIR/bin/x86_64-linux:$PATH  # for 64-bit installation
   export INFOPATH=$INFOPATH:$TEXDIR/texmf-dist/doc/info
   export MANPATH=$MANPATH:$TEXDIR/texmf-dist/doc/man
   

   Log out and log back in to receive the new variables, or, source the file, e.g. source ~/.profile to activate it for your current shell. This last step should make sure your application actually use your new 2014 local TeXLive installation rather than the Ubuntu packaged one. Some tools will require you to configure that yourself, see for example this on TeXWorks.

   Here's how the GUI installer looks like:

   

6. Finally, to install new packages you need to setup a Texlive package database (TLPDB). See this post for more information. In summary, you have to run:

   sudo apt-get install xzdec
   sudo tlmgr init-usertree
   

   then you can install a new package, for example, to install package wrapfig, run:

   sudo env PATH="$PATH" tlmgr install wrapfig
   

   or if you installed in your home directory, you can omit sudo:

   tlmgr install wrapfig
   

You can install TeX Live 2017 from Jonathon F’s PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/texlive-2017
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade -f texlive-full

You may run into a package compatibility error when you upgrade straight to TeX Live 2017 without the complete removal of a previous TeX Live installation^{(thanks mrek)}. See Install texlive 2017 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for solutions^{(thanks dexteritas)}.