Problem installing mathabx-type1 font on Ubuntu-Linux

Question

I've been trying to install the mathabx-type1 font with no sucess on my Ubuntu-Linux distribution. I downloaded the .pfb and .map files from here.

What I did was the following:

1. First, I had to find where my local texmf folder was. In my case, it is located at /usr/share/texmf.
2. I created a folder named mathabx-type1 on /usr/share/texmf/fonts/type1/public/, and copied the .pfb files there.
3. I created a folder named mathabx-type1 on /usr/share/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/, and copied the .map file there.
4. I ran the command mktexlsr on terminal.
5. I ran the command updmap-sys on terminal.

The thing is that the update at step 5 doesn't touch the mathabx-type1 folder, but it does update the other folders on the same folder! (that is, it "sees" all the .map files in every folder at /usr/share/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/ except for mathabx-type1). Can anyone tell me what I'm missing here?

Answer 1

The following step is missing between 4. and 5.:

updmap-sys --enable Map=mathabx.map

And before 4. the TeX files CTAN:fonts/ps-type1/mathabx/texinputs/* are copied to texmf/tex/latex/mathabx/.

You need also the MetaFont sources. CTAN:fonts/ps-type1/mathabx/sources/* are copied to texmf/fonts/sources/public/mathabx/*. Then the TFM files should be generated automatically if needed.

Remarks:

• Is your Ubuntu/TeX Live so old that it does not contain mathabx (date on CTAN is 2005)?

• External packages should not be installed in the distribution tree (/usr/share/texmf looks pretty close to a distribution tree). The next update of the distribution might interfere. A good place (for system-wide installation) is the "local texmf tree", that is the tree that is found by TEXMFLOCAL:

  kpsewhich --var-value TEXMFLOCAL

Further reading: Installing TeX fonts.