[R] need help for building R in Ubuntu 8.04

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "EH" == Erin Hodgess <erinm.hodgess at gmail.com>
>>>>>     on Sun, 25 May 2008 13:27:04 -0500 writes:

    EH> Try: ./configure --with-x=no

well......  no!  really don't.

If you want to enjoy a Linux system and building from the
source, and then maybe learn how that is happening, learning
about shell scripts and 'make' and ...
then rather do get the extra ubuntu packages needed.

The advice (below) to get the 'xorg-dev'
is definitely good advice. I have it on the list of packages
I'd always want to install in addition to the basic
ubuntu/debian list.

But you most probably will find that you need a few more tools /
libraries / headers for your ubuntu system such that you can
build R with all the bells and whistles possible.

There's the Debian (and "hence" Ubuntu) package
'r-base-dev'
which contains 'r-base' (i.e. a *binary* version of R; the one
Dirk Eddelbuettel mentioned),
but also most of the compilers/libraries/... that you'd want to
build R from the sources.

Last time I did get 'r-base-dev' on a "virgin" ubuntu system,
I vaguely remember that it did not contain *really* all the
tools I'd wanted, but almost all.
e.g., you may also want the two packages

  tcl8.4-dev
  tk8.4-dev

which probably are not in the dependencies of 'r-base-dev'.

---
Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich


    EH> On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 1:20 PM, Roland Rau
    EH> <roland.rproject at gmail.com> wrote:
    >> Hi,
    >> 
    >> Nitesh Agrawal wrote:
    >>> 
    >>> Hi everyone I have been trying to build R in ubuntu 8.04
    >>> from its source code but am getting the following error.
    >>> 
    >>> configure: error: --with-x=yes (default) and X11
    >>> headers/libs are not available
    >>> 
    >> 
>
> I am currently sitting in front of a Windows machine but I
    >> built R on my laptop at home running Ubuntu 8.04. So
    >> hopefully, I don't make a mistake.  What I guess you have
    >> to do, is to install the
    >> 
    >> xorg-dev
    >> 
    >> package.  You could do this by: sudo apt-get install
    >> xorg-dev in a terminal window.
    >> 
    >> And then you can start again with ./configure and so on.
    >> 
    >> Does this help?  Roland