Description of Problem:
A comment in /usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf says:

% Now, list all the texmf trees. If you have multiple trees you can
% use shell brace notation, like this:
%   TEXMF = {$HOMETEXMF,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFMAIN}

This should likely rather be "{!!$HOMETEXMF,".  A line just below is:

TEXMF = {!!$HOMETEXMF,!!$TEXMFMAIN}

but somebody new may not catch right away what is the meaning of
this difference.

A comment to a sample TEXMFLOCAL should also likely explain that
a tree below this directory has to be created.  A minimum would
be 'tex/generic/'.  Otherwise somebody will drop new files in
$TEXMFLOCAL and s/he will start to wonder why they are not found
even after rehashing was done.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
tetex-1.0.7-36.4