[R] R packages install problems linux - X not found (WhiteBox EL 3)

[Marc Schwartz]

On Sun, 2004-08-08 at 12:32, Douglas Bates wrote:
> Dr Mike Waters wrote:
> 
> > I am used to using R under Windows, but have done an install of 1.9.1 under
> > WhiteBox linux 3 (based on RHEL 3). This all went without a hitch, along
> > with most of the additional package installs. However, while trying to
> > install car and rgl I hit a problem regarding the X environment not being
> > found. As I was doing the install from a console *within* the X environment,
> > this is obviously down to a missing environment variable or link. The X11
> > directories all seem to be in the usual places. I've checked as much as I
> > can through the archives and googled around, but to no avail. Any help
> > appreciated.
> 
> Or a missing development package.  In many Linux distributions the 
> include files for X11 are in a separate package from the run-time 
> libraries.  I have never used WhiteBox Linux but I imagine that will be 
> the case for that distribution too.  Check to see if there is a package 
> with a name like xlibs-dev or x-dev.


Just to amplify on Doug's comments, the RPM in question should be
something like:

XFree86-devel-...

where the "..." is replaced the by version numbering schema.

I am presuming that WhiteBox has not yet changed over to the use of
X.org in place of XFree86 at this point. If it has, then the RPM would
be something like:

xorg-x11-devel-...

An easy way to check for this would be to open a console window and use:

rpm -q XFree86-devel

in the first case or:

rpm -q xorg-x11-devel

in the second case.

If nothing is returned by the command, then it would confirm that you
are missing the requisite RPM.

In the case of the RGL package, you might want to review this recent
thread:

https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2004-August/thread.html

which indicates some issues related to the same devel libraries,
including the XFree86-Mesa-libGL (or xorg-x11-Mesa-libGL) and
XFree86-Mesa-libGLU (or xorg-x11-Mesa-libGLU) RPMS.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz