[R] rgl/compiz problem

[Ben Bolker]

Barry Rowlingson <b.rowlingson <at> lancaster.ac.uk> writes:

> 
> I have just encountered the problem with rgl where plot3d figures
> don't interact with the mouse. My plots zoom in and out with the mouse
> wheel but the mouse buttons do nothing. I can't rotate the plot.
> 
> This has been mentioned and discussed here and in other lists before,
> and the solution is to turn off Ubuntu's fancy graphics.  Back in
> March, Ben Bolker said:
> 
> """
> unfortunately rgl and compiz/etc. both try to use
> the same OpenGL interface, so you can't use both at
> the same time.
> """
> 
> This has echoes of when TCP/IP was in its infancy back in the days of
> DOS, and only one program could access the network interface at a time
> (until TCP/IP software got its act together). Is OpenGL really in the
> same position now? Or is Compiz being "greedy" in some sense? Surely
> two OpenGL applications can run at the same time? Or is it because rgl
> is running 'within' another OpenGL window already, so there's some
> nesting problem going on?
> 
>  Google Earth works fine, and I think that uses OpenGL. Anyone had any
> ideas since March?
> 
> I'm on Ubuntu 8.04 and R 2.7.1
> 
> Barry

  Unfortunately, an apparently knowledgeable compiz person
said:

This is a limitation of DRI, DRI2 should fix this, and should hopefully be in
most drivers by Xorg 7.5(maybe 7.6), nvidia has there on implementation, that's
why it works on it

http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=8462

  And poking around,

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjYzNw

"sometime in 2009" is the closest I could get to finding
an expected date when this would be available ...

  Ben Bolker