[Rd] X11() dies in remote background

[Prof Brian Ripley]

I use a display on an Xvfb server:

Xvfb :5 -screen 0 1280x1024x24 &
setenv DISPLAY :5

You do most likely need a non-default depth (on my machine the default is 
12 bits), and it is possible you may need to deal with authentication 
issues.

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007, Vincent Carey 525-2265 wrote:

>
> this is not a problem with R but a request for related advice.
>
> i am trying to run a lengthy batch job from my home.
>
> the OS is ...
> Linux jedi.bwh.harvard.edu 2.4.22-openmosix1smp #1 SMP Fri Sep 5 01:05:37 CEST
> 2003 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
>
> i start the job and put it in the background.  while i am connected, all is
> well.  eventually my ISP shuts down the connection if i do not do any
> input.  then:
>
>
> Boxplots of G intensitiesError in X11(paste("png::", filename, sep = ""), width, height, pointsize,  :
>  unable to start device PNG
> Calls: doPlot -> qcBeadLevel -> png
> In addition: Warning message:
> In png(filename, width = 640, height = 480) :
>  unable to open connection to X11 display ''
> Execution halted
>
> is it possible to have X11() succeed when there is no real display to connect
> to?
>
> R version 2.6.0 Under development (unstable) (2007-06-29 r42093)
> i686-pc-linux-gnu
>
> locale:
> LC_CTYPE=C;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=C;LC_COLLATE=C;LC_MONETARY=C;LC_MESSAGES=en_US;LC_PAPER=en_US;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] grid      tools     stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets
> [8] methods   base
>
> other attached packages:
> [1] beadarray_1.5.3    beadarraySNP_1.3.7 quantsmooth_1.3.0  lodplot_1.1
> [5] quantreg_4.06      SparseM_0.73       affy_1.13.9        affyio_1.3.1
> [9] geneplotter_1.13.4 lattice_0.15-11    annotate_1.13.3    Biobase_1.13.19
> [13] limma_2.9.5
>
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] KernSmooth_2.22-20 RColorBrewer_0.2-3 rcompgen_0.1-13
>
>
> ---
> Vince Carey, PhD
> Assoc. Prof Med (Biostatistics)
> Harvard Medical School
> Channing Laboratory - ph 6175252265 fa 6177311541
> 181 Longwood Ave Boston MA 02115 USA
> stvjc at channing.harvard.edu
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org 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