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There are many distributions that provide complete TeX/LaTeX installations, for many different operating systems. I use teTeX on Mac OS X, installed via darwinports (now macports.org). There are several packages that are increasingly out of date, and the author of teTeX recommends switching to an alternative distribution: TeX Live.

I have a working, efficient system at present, and am reluctant to switch over. This is primarily due to time constraints, but I also don’t want a broken TeX/LaTeX system: I have several deadlines this week, and need LaTeX to “just work”.

Upgrading packages manually is straightforward. In the standard darwinports installation, teTeX support files are installed in /opt/local/share/texmf-dist. Locally installed, or locally managed files can go into /opt/local/share/texmf-local.

To install or upgrade packages on a local system:

1. Download required package from CTAN
2. Generate style files: read the README file, but usually you need to run

   
latex name_of_package.ins


3. Copy the generated style files into texmf-local:
   
sudo cp name_of_package.sty /opt/local/share/texmf-local/tex/latex/

4. Update the TeX/LaTeX package “cache”:
   
sudo texhash