Switching to MikTeX

I use the cygwin based TeTeX TeX system. The problem is, it's no longer maintained and the focus is on TeXLive a newer TeX system. TeXLive has gone through several iterations and is released yearly. This year's release is sometime in July 2008 apparently.

I asked on the cygwin list whether there is going be a port of the TexLive TeX tree to cygwin. I got a short answer whether I'd like to volunteer.

ummm....Don't know anything about TeX sources and cygwin ports building and I'm not sure whether I want to.

So, I'm stuck using TeTeX and no cygwin port of the latest TeX system i.e. no upgrade path. And this is seriously showing it's age. pdfTeX version on the cygwin system is at 1.21x while the latest version is 1.40x.

Now, that leaves only one option, MikTeX.

Bit apprehensive of how this is going to pan out. Plus there's this thing of Emacs, AucTeX, cygwin and MikTeX. Windows, fake Unix, Windows port of TeX...

Combination of the good and the kludgy.

So, the plan is, I'll use the Emacs 22.1 version compiled with Auctex and MikTeX and see how it goes. If all goes, redo the same with Emacs 22.2.

Downloading the MikTeX installer and installing the additional packages now. Let's see how this works out.