[R] X11 fonts problem with ubuntu breezy

[Martijn van Iersel]

Hello

I have big trouble getting R to work correctly with X11 fonts on Ubuntu 
Breezy 5.10. I was hoping somebody could help me with this issue.

The first part of the problem is that I get the error "could not find 
any X11 fonts" for any command with graphical ouput, for example 
"demo(graphics)":


-------------------------------------------------------
R : Copyright 2005, The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Version 2.2.1  (2005-12-20 r36812)
ISBN 3-900051-07-0

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

  Natural language support but running in an English locale

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.

Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.

[Previously saved workspace restored]

 > demo (graphics);


        demo(graphics)
        ---- ~~~~~~~~

Type  <Return>   to start :

 > require(graphics)
[1] TRUE

 > require(datasets)
[1] TRUE

 > if (dev.cur() <= 1) get(getOption("device"))()
Error in get(getOption("device"))() : could not find any X11 fonts
Check that the Font Path is correct.
-------------------------------------------------------


After some googling, I found out that apparently this can be fixed by 
clearing the LANG environment variable:
LANG=
export LANG

(By default on my machine, the environment contains "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" 
and "LANGUAGE=en_NL:en")

However, when I try again, I get a different error, like "X11 font at 
size 14 could not be loaded"


-------------------------------------------------------
 > demo(graphics)


        demo(graphics)
        ---- ~~~~~~~~

Type  <Return>   to start :

 > require(graphics)
[1] TRUE

 > require(datasets)
[1] TRUE

 > if (dev.cur() <= 1) get(getOption("device"))()

 > opar <- par(ask = interactive() && (.Device %in% c("X11",
    "GTK", "gnome", "windows", "quartz")))

 > x <- rnorm(50)

 > opar <- c(opar, par(bg = "white"))

 > plot(x, ann = FALSE, type = "n")
Hit <Return> to see next plot:

 > abline(h = 0, col = gray(0.9))

 > lines(x, col = "green4", lty = "dotted")

 > points(x, bg = "limegreen", pch = 21)

 > title(main = "Simple Use of Color In a Plot", xlab = "Just a Whisper 
of a Label",
    col.main = "blue", col.lab = gray(0.8), cex.main = 1.2, cex.lab = 1,
    font.main = 4, font.lab = 3)
Error in title(main = "Simple Use of Color In a Plot", xlab = "Just a 
Whisper of a Label",  :
        X11 font at size 14 could not be loaded
 >
-------------------------------------------------------


Any idea what the problem might be? I run in this problem both with the 
R 2.1.1. binary package from ubuntu, and when I build 2.2.1 myself from 
source.

regards,

Martijn van Iersel