[NTG-context] texmfstart newbie

[David Arnold]

OK,

I've updated to the latest context via Gerben's i-installer on my mac  
osx 10.4.6.

I have no idea what texmfstart is nor do I understand its purpose.

I imagine the first thing I have to do is configure, because it is  
certainly not found on my system.

tmp $ which texmfstart
tmp $ texmfstart
-bash: texmfstart: command not found


Here is my path:

tmp $ echo $PATH
/sw/bin:/sw/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ 
local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current:/opt/local/bin:/usr/ 
local/mysql/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

For example:

tmp $ texexec --version

TeXExec 5.4.3 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1997-2005

                texexec : TeXExec 5.4.3 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1997-2005
                texutil : TeXUtil 9.0.1 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1992-2006
                    tex : pdfeTeX, 3.141592-1.30.4-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.5)
                context : ver: 2006.06.23 20:39
                cont-en : ver: 2006.06.23 20:39  fmt: 2006.6.27  mes:  
english
                cont-nl : ver: 2006.06.23 20:39  fmt: 2006.6.27  mes:  
dutch

         total run time : 3 seconds

                warning : use 'texmfstart texexec' instead


tmp $ which texexec
/usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current/texexec

Which appears to be some sort of shell script.

tmp $ cat /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current/texexec
#!/bin/sh

test -f /bin/sh5 && test -z "$RUNNING_SH5" \
   && { UNAMES=`uname -s`; test "x$UNAMES" = xULTRIX; } 2>/dev/null \
   && { RUNNING_SH5=true; export RUNNING_SH5; exec /bin/sh5 $0 ${1 
+"$@"}; }
unset RUNNING_SH5

test -f /bin/bsh && test -z "$RUNNING_BSH" \
   && { UNAMES=`uname -s`; test "x$UNAMES" = xAIX; } 2>/dev/null \
   && { RUNNING_BSH=true; export RUNNING_BSH; exec /bin/bsh $0 ${1 
+"$@"}; }
unset RUNNING_BSH

export PATH

# hack around a bug in zsh:
test -n "${ZSH_VERSION+set}" && alias -g '${1+"$@"}'='"$@"'

what=`echo $0 | sed 's at .*/@@'`

p=`kpsewhich -format=texmfscripts $what.pl`
{ test -n "$p" && test -f "$p"; } \
   || { echo "\`$what.pl' not found."; exit 1; }

perl "$p" ${1+"$@"}



Ruby is installed:

tmp $ which ruby
/usr/bin/ruby
tmp $ ruby --version
ruby 1.8.2 (2004-12-25) [powerpc-darwin8.0]

And here is the location of texmfstart:

/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/scripts/context/ruby/texmfstart.rb
/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/scripts/context/stubs/lib/texmfstart
/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/scripts/context/stubs/lib/ 
texmfstart/base
/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/scripts/context/stubs/lib/ 
texmfstart/base/kpse


Now for questions:

1. How do I configure my system to use texmstart?

2. What are some of the usual uses I should be employing of  
texmfstart? How will it improve performance? How will it simplify my  
work? Etc? I.e what are the advantages?