TeXLive is a well maintained and often updated LaTeX distribution that works for any OS. Download TeXLive net Installer and run. Click Advanced and use the “basic” scheme, which is well under one GB to start.

When building a document and it seems to be missing a package, note the error messages. Find and install needed packages via tlmgr using commands like:

• find package by filename: tlmgr search --global --file fullpage.sty
• find fonts/packages by name: tlmgr info ieee
• install package: tlmgr install lmodern

Use a LaTeX IDE (GUI editor) like TeXstudio.

When a new major version of TeXLive is released, simply repeat the procedure above and point any programs like TeXstudio to the new TeXLive install directory.