[R] Upgraded FC4 to FC5 - unable to start device X11 in R

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Clearly X11() was found, so grDevices must be on the search path.
This error message is about X11 fonts.

It is allowed to exclude grDevices from the list of default packages, and 
if you do, it is not loaded.  That is a change in 2.5.0 but not a bug.
If you chose not to ask for it, we presume you did not want it.

Parts of graphics are useful without any graphics device and there are 
graphics devices in other packages, so it seemed reasonable to allow users 
the choice of whether they got grDevices.


On Sat, 16 Jun 2007, Patrick Connolly wrote:

> On Sat, 16-Jun-2007 at 04:09PM +1200, Patrick Connolly wrote:
>
> |> On Fri, 15-Jun-2007 at 01:50PM -0700, Li-Jung Liang wrote:
> |>
> |> |> Hi,
> |> |>
> |> |> I upgraded my system from FC4 to FC5.  So now I have R version 2.5.0
> |> |> (2007-04-23).
> |> |> But I ran into a problem with starting device X11 (message below).
> |> |>
> |> |>  > X11()
> |> |> can't find X11 font
> |> |> Error in X11(display, width, height, pointsize, if (is.null(gamma)) 1
> |> |> else gamma,  :
> |> |>         unable to start device X11
> |> |>
> |> |> Any idea?
> |>
> |> Check what search() gives you.  Make sure package:grDevices is on that
> |> list.
> |>
> |> I ran into that problem myself.  I never figured out how come it used
> |> to be there, but suddenly ceased to be.  The problem didn't appear
> |> until R-2.5.0.  In the USER-VISIBLE CHANGES under
> |> CHANGES IN R VERSION 2.0.0,
> |> I see this:
> |>
> |>  o	Package 'graphics' has been split into 'grDevices' (the graphics
> |> 	devices shared between base and grid graphics) and 'graphics'
> |> 	(base graphics).  Each of the 'graphics' and 'grid' packages
> |> 	load 'grDevices' when they are attached.  Note that
> |> 	ps.options() has been moved to grDevices and user hooks may
> |> 	need to be updated.
> |>
> |> My suspicion is that grDevices did not have to be specifically loaded
> |> if graphics was one of your default packages loaded at startup.  Since
> |> few others seem to have had the same experience, I'd hesitate to call
> |> it a bug.  I've got round the problem by adding grDevices to the list
> |> in my ~/.Rprofile file.
>
> Perhaps I could explain what I meant to say better than that....
>
> Starting R with the --vanilla switch will load graphics and the
> grDevices packages (among others).  There seems to be a difference
> from previous versions if I use a ~/.Rprofile file to load the
> graphics package, since the grDevices does NOT automatically load
> whereas it did in R-2.4.x versions.  That might be a bug, but since
> others don't seem to have the problem, I'd hesitate to say.
>
> In any case, if grDevices isn't in the search list, I'd be fairly
> certain you can get round the problem you describe by specifically
> loading it, or adding it to the startup list of packages.  (I'm
> assuming you installed R from the tgz file and not an rpm).  I, too,
> use Redhat/Fedora but other users don't seem to have the same problem,
> so it's likely something more specific to our setups.
>
> As ever, the more knowledgeable could have a better idea.
>
> HTH
>
>

-- 
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