TeX Live now has its own package manager. Here is how to get it for Ubuntu...
- Remove old TeX Live:
- sudo apt-get remove texlive-base, then
- sudo apt-get autoremove (to get the dependents removed as well).
- For easy of use, create the directory /usr/local/texlive (if it does not exist), and change the mode to writable: sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/texlive
- You will need perl-tk to use GUI of the installer and tlmgr: sudo apt-get install perl-tk
- Get install-tl-unx.tar.gz
- Unpack the obtained file on to Desktop, and run install-tl from the folder "install-in" (in a shell): ./install-tl -gui. This will bring up the installation GUI. If everything in the list looks OK, simply click on the "install TeX Live" button.
(Note. You might want to review the "Selected Scheme" and "Standard Collections".) - Add path to the system by putting the following line into .bashrc in your root directory (use gedit to put it at the end of the file).
PATH=/usr/local/texlive/2008/bin/i386-linux:$PATH
Now in a new shell, you can use tlmgr to manager your TeX packages: tlmgr -gui