[R] Installing from RPM on Red Hat 9

[Jonathan Baron]

On 09/18/03 12:58, Ted Harding wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>Sorry to bring up this kind of issue (though any discussion may help
>some other people).
>
>I've just installed Red Hat 9 Linux (opting for GNOME) and now want
>to install R.
>I downloaded the RPM for Red Hat 9 from CRAN (as well as the patched
>readline).
>
>Attempting to install ( rpm -i R-1.7.1-1.i386.rpm ) I get, pretty
>quickly, the following:
>
>warning: R-1.7.1-1.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 97d3544e
>error: Failed dependencies:
>        libtk8.3.so is needed by R-1.7.1-1
>
>I guess the "warning" can be ignored, but I'm bothered by the failed
>dependency.
>
>A: There are libtcl8.3.so and libtcl.so under /usr/lib;
>B: There's various "libgtk" under /usr/lib;
>C: There's no "libtk"
>D: I can't find any explicit reference to "libtk" in the installation
>   GUI when the installation CDs are being used. So, even if libtk is
>   in there somewhere, I can't find where to look for it. (I don't
>   want to install everything in sight, because of restricted disk
>   space).
>
>I suspect that "libgtk" is a GNOMEified version of libtk ... ? Usually,
>in my Linux experience, tcltk is a unified bunch of stuff which installs
>everthing for both Tcl and Tk; Red Hat 9 seems to be different (and it's
>my first experience of this version).
>
>ANYWAY: Has anyone encountered this problem and solved it? Or am I
>overlooking something simple?
>
>Comments (and especially solutions) will be most welcome.
>With thanks,
>Ted.

You can find what something is by searching for it in
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/
Turns out that libtk8.3.so is part of the tk rpm.  So you could
install that.  (I can also find it with 
 rpm -q --whatprovides libtk8.3.so
because I already have it.  But that won't help you.)

I vaguely recall that the requirement for tk and tcl was not
originally part of the RPM, but Martyn Plummer changed it because
people (like me) were complaining that Rcmdr (and perhaps other
packages) would not install without them.  He also started
including "configure.log" so that you would know how he had made
the RPM.

In the meantime, I had installed R from source, after making sure
that I had tcl and tk.  This was quite easy (although it took a
while for everything to finish).  So, I suggest that, if you do
not want to install tk, then you try installing from source.  The
installation instructions come with the source code.

Jon
-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page:            http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron
R page:               http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/