[Rd] R | vnc | X11 fonts

[Peter Dalgaard]

Evan Cooch <cooch17 at verizon.net> writes:

> Greetings -
> 
> Users of the box I'm putting together will need to be able to run R 
> remotely, using a virtual desktop. One approach (that I'm trying) is to 
> use VNC. So far, I can get the remote gnome desktop up on the server 
> (running Fedora Core 5), and can start R from a terminal. However, for a 
> lot of the R scripts I've tried, I get 'font errors' - the general error 
> message is
> 
> Error in X11()  : could not find any X11 fonts
> Check that the Font Path is correct
> 
> 
> OK, bring up another terminal window on VNC, and try xset q, which shows
> 
> Font Path
> 
> /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/, /usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/, 
> /usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/, ...
> 
> and so on, and so on - about 10 different font directories in all.
> 
> So, given that xset q shows that I have lots of X11 fonts in the Font 
> Path, then why does X11() in R tell me I don't have any?

I don't think xset q is the right diagnostic tool. I suspect that it
just reflects a default setting of vnc. Those directories could be
empty for all that it knows. xfontsel might be more to the point if
you need to know whether the fonts are actually available.

However, I can't reproduce similar behaviour on FC5 with the
straightforward vncserver/vncviewer/twm default setup (i.e., it runs
demo(graphics)).  So I suspect you need to dig deeper or tell us more
details about what goes wrong, e.g. how exactly are you running your R
scripts, will they work from the console, etc.

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
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