[Rd] RCmdr on Linux with R 2.0.0 over VNC can't use GLX

[John Fox]

Dear Brian and Bob,

That's too bad: I had hoped to increase the use of 3D graphics in the Rcmdr
package, for example for 3D added-variable and component+residuals plots. In
fact, I'd like to see improvements to the rgl package so allow such things
as plot controls and point identification.

In any event, it shouldn't be hard to make rgl optional, and I'll do that in
the next release of the Rcmdr package, probably via something like
options(Rcmdr=list(rgl=FALSE)).

Regards,
 John

--------------------------------
John Fox
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario
Canada L8S 4M4
905-525-9140x23604
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox 
-------------------------------- 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prof Brian Ripley [mailto:ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk] 
> Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 10:29 AM
> To: Bob Kinney
> Cc: John Fox; r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [Rd] RCmdr on Linux with R 2.0.0 over VNC can't use GLX
> 
> The issue is with package rgl, and we need to talk to the 
> maintainer, John Fox (Cc:ed here)
> 
> John: I am having problems too.  On AMD64, rgl was flaky 
> under Fedora Core
> 2 and crashes everytime on FC3.  It also crashes on 32-bit 
> FC3 using Xvfb.
> Could you please make it optional: few users will actually 
> want it in every session.
> 
> On Thu, 2 Dec 2004, Bob Kinney wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> >
> > I'm a admin over at Harvard University and I have quite a few users 
> > that use R predominately over VNC.  In the past this has 
> not been an 
> > issue, but after upgrading to R 2.0.0 they can no longer 
> use RCmdr over VNC.
> > When trying to use the package, they see the following:
> >
> >> library("Rcmdr")
> > Loading required package: tcltk
> > Loading required package: zoo
> > Loading required package: strucchange
> > Loading required package: sandwich
> > Loading required package: rgl
> > RGL: GLX extension missing on server
> > Error in firstlib(which.lib.loc, package) :
> >        error rgl_init
> > Segmentation fault (core dumped)
> >
> > The same commands work fine when using a non-VNC display.  Is it at 
> > all possible to modify RCmdr to not use GLX when it is unavailable?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Bob
> >
> > --
> > Earl (Bob) Kinney
> > Unix Systems Administrator
> > Harvard-MIT Data Center
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list 
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595