passivetex missing in feisty

[rillian]

Binary package hint: xmlto

passivetex isn't included in feisty universe, removed as per bug 82342, even though packages like xmlto expect to call (and depend) on it.

xmlto's package deps should be updated, and an alternative way to generate pdf from xml should be implemented.

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

Confirmed, passivetext is Recommended by xmlto but no longer available.

[Daniel Leidert (dleidert-deactivatedaccount)]

This is not completely true. The Debian TeX maintainers offered to take over and reintroduce passivetex.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/04/msg00717.html

However, I don't know the current status.

[Russel Winder (russel)]

So if xmlto is no longer the way of converting DocBook/XML to PDF because PassiveTeX is gone, what is the way of doing the conversion?

(The answer is probably obvious, I just missed the memo.)

[Daniel Leidert (dleidert-deactivatedaccount)]

xmlto 0.0.20 (already in Debian) supports docbook-xsl/fop for this. The next version (0.0.21 or maybe 0.0.22) will support the dblatex toolchain too and passivetex code will be dropped from upstream, because it is not actively maintained. More information can be found in the Debian BTS.

Alternatives are to use dblatex or docbook-xsl/fop directly.

[Russel Winder (russel)]

Daniel, Thanks for chipping in on this one. Yesterday I discovered dblatex and it seems to be the good choice.

[Daniel Leidert (dleidert-deactivatedaccount)]

This is invalid or fixed. However, it won't require any further action.