Due to a problem the new xdvi was having displaying rotated PostScript graphics on AIX systems, the new RCS versions of TeX, xdvi, and dvips did not become the default on January 26 as planned and as previously announced in the January 14 issue of The Kiosk.
When this problem is fixed, the new versions will become the default on RCS, and another announcement will appear here in Academic Computing Services' What's New section of RPInfo.
If this problem does not affect you, feel free to use the new versions by first issuing the following command from a UNIX prompt:
setup tex-new
You will then be able to take advantage of the benefits of the new programs, most notably that the new dvips uses outline versions of the TeX CM fonts instead of bitmapped versions. As explained in the Kiosk article, outline fonts make it possible to produce resolution-independent output; you will no longer need to be concerned whether the printer you are using is 300dpi, 400dpi, or 600dpi. In addition, PDF files made with outline fonts are good quality, a significant change from the poor quality of PDF files made with bitmap fonts.
When you run the new dvips, you will notice a difference in that the names of the fonts being used will appear on the screen.
xdvi, however, will continue to use bitmap fonts for its screen display and will build new magnifications as necessary. And while dvips used to do the job of building new fonts as required, now that the program uses outline fonts, xdvi will take over that job. As a result, until xdvi builds a large collection of font magnifications, xdvi will need to build fonts fairly frequently. When it does so, a large amount of output including many bracketed numbers will appear on your screen. Don't be alarmed! These are not errors, just the normal result of xdvi's making a few font. In addition to making new magnifications of the Computer Modern fonts, xdvi will now also build bitmapped versions of the Adobe PostScript fonts (Times, Palatino, etc.), thereby improving the display of documents using these fonts.