pdflatex build error: Mismatched LaTeX support files detected

[Rich Shepard]

On Mon, 19 Jun 2023, Herbert Voss wrote:

Herbert,

I'm the only user of this host.

> fmtutil-sys --all
$ fmtutil-sys --all
fmtutil: fmtutil is using the following fmtutil.cnf files (in precedence order):
fmtutil:   /usr/local/texlive/2023/texmf-dist/web2c/fmtutil.cnf
fmtutil: fmtutil is using the following fmtutil.cnf file for writing changes:
fmtutil:   /usr/local/texlive/2023/texmf-config/web2c/fmtutil.cnf
fmtutil [ERROR]: format directory not writable: /usr/local/texlive/2023/texmf-var/web2c

Huh. Looks okay to me:
$ ll /usr/local/texlive/2023/texmf-var/
total 28
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root 4096 May 23 15:52 fonts/
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3689 Jun 14 06:03 ls-R
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 May 23 15:50 luametatex-cache/
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 May 23 15:50 luatex-cache/
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 May 23 14:35 tex/
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 May 23 15:50 web2c/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 May 23 14:35 xdvi/

> and
> sudo fmtutil-sys --all
  ...
###############################################################################
fmtutil: Error! Not all formats have been built successfully.
Visit the log files in directory
   /usr/share/texmf-var/web2c
for details.
###############################################################################

This is a summary of all `failed' messages and warnings:
`pdfetex -ini  -jobname=amstex -progname=amstex -translate-file=cp227.tcx *amstex.ini' failed
`pdfetex -ini  -jobname=bamstex -progname=bamstex -translate-file=cp227.tcx bamstex.ini' failed

What do I read to learn how to properly build amstex and bamstex?

> In this case you get local format or system format files.

Different errors when run by user and root.

Thanks,

Rich