[R] R isn't finding tcltk

[Peter Dalgaard]

John P. Burkett wrote:
> On a x86 machine operating under Gentoo Linux, I'm having persistent 
> difficulty in getting R version 2.6.1 (the latest available through 
> Gentoo's portage system) to use tcltk.  The R command library(tcltk) 
> elicits the following response:
> Error in firstlib(which.lib.loc, package) :
>   Tcl/Tk support is not available on this system
> Error in library(tcltk) : .First.lib failed for 'tcltk'
>
Hmm, so Gentoo's all-singing all-dancing build system is "helping" you 
install an obsolescent version incorrectly?

Can't you try building from plain sources? In particulat the output from 
the configure step should be informative.

Usually, it is a -devel package  that is missing, e.g. on  Fedora  you 
need not only

tk-8.4.17-2.fc8
tcl-8.4.17-1.fc8

but also

tk-devel-8.4.17-2.fc8
tcl-devel-8.4.17-1.fc8

    -pd

> After first encountering this problem, I took the following steps:
> 1. Made sure that installed programs include dev-lang/tcl, 
> dev-tcltk/mysqltcl, dev-tcltk/otcl, dev-tcltk/tcl-debug, 
> dev-tcltk/tcldom, dev-tcltk/tcllib, dev-tcltk/tclperl, 
> dev-tcltk/tclpython, dev-tcltk/tclreadline, dev-tcltk/tclxml,
> and dev-tcltk/tclxml-expat.
> 2. Verified that tcltk was installed by writing a little file 
> hello.tcl, running the command "tclsh hello.tcl", and observing that 
> the output was correct.
> 3. Removed R by doing "emerge -C R".
> 4. Set a tcltk USE flag for R by appending the line dev-lang/R tcltk
> to my /etc/portage/package.use file.
> 5. Reinstalled R by doing "emerge R"
>
> Then I started R and again tried "library(tcltk)".  The response was 
> exactly the same before.
>
> I would be very grateful for your suggestions for solving this problem.
>
> Best regards,
> John
>
>
>
>


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   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
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