Install TeXLive(TL) by downloading the installation package from the TL website instead of doing apt-get install. This way one can avoid running into problems like this
In case you are reinstalling or reattempting a failed installation, clean up everything. See here for how to
sudo apt-get purge texlive*
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/texlive/*
rm -rf ~/.texlive*
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/texmf
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/texmf
sudo rm -rf /etc/texmf
sudo apt-get remove tex-common --purge
rm -rf ~/.texlive
find -L /usr/local/bin/ -lname /usr/local/texlive/*/bin/* | xargs -r rm
Download the software from the website. Link to the page
Once you have the software and have unpacked it, cd to the directory, e.g. in my case, I downloded and unpacked it in Downloads,
cd /Download/<install-tl-somenumbers>
sudo perl install-tl
if you click i, TL is installed with the default options. In the submenus, one can instead select the specific packages one wants to install. The TL scheme menu is set to full scheme (everything) by default. It is advisable to install the basic scheme(plain and latex) only. For example most of us do not need the support that TL provides for various languages.
To choose the scheme S
The choice can be further refined using the collections menu.
To choose collections C
tlmgr can be used to install extra packages as you go about using TL.
In the Options customization, creating symlinks is unselect by default, selecting this avoids having to manually add PATH to the directories.
click i
If you did not click to add symlinks during the installation, do so manually by adding the following lines to ~/.profile
PATH=/usr/local/texlive/2020/bin/x86_64-linux:$PATH; export PATH
MANPATH=/usr/local/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/doc/man:$MANPATH; export MANPATH
INFOPATH=/usr/local/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/doc/info:$INFOPATH; export INFOPATH
tex --version should give you information about the TL installed in your system. If it does not, there is a problem with the PATH defined for the user. You may have to add the PATH to your ~/.bashrc file
latex sample2e.tex should generate a log file
xdvi sample2e.dvi can be used to preview the file generated
dvips sample2e.dvi -o sample2e.ps is for generating a ps file for printing
pdflatex sample2e.tex generates the pdf file
REVTeX, the macro maintained by APS uses XeTeX, in case you have installed the xetex package, check by doing
xetex opentype-info.tex
If and when you get an error blabla.cls not found or blabla.sty not found, blabla being a package name, it can be installed using tlmgr
check whether the package is installed
tlmgr show blabla
if it says, installed:no
tlmgr install blabla
You may also have to update tlmgr, tlmgr update self
Reference