[R] R plotting on linux, regardless of architecture of local machine

[Marius 't Hart]

Hi,

If one wants to see an X GUI from a remote application, there's no other 
way than to run an X server locally (the easiest way to do that on 
Windows is with Xming IMHO).

So if you don't want an X server locally, you should not use an X GUI. R 
can of course also be installed on Windows, including Windows servers, 
which may be accessible through Remote Desktop on your network (even 
from Linux machines).

You could also try using Rweb (http://www.math.montana.edu/Rweb/) though 
that will require running R on a web server of course. And I guess you'd 
get some sort of bitmap images, maybe svg.

In my opinion a local X server is the easiest solution, but there are 
other options.

Good luck,

Marius.

On 06/04/2010 05:31 PM, vaneet wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I just installed R 2.11.0 on a 64 bit Linux machine:
>
> Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.5 (Tikanga)
>
> I am still in the learning process in terms of handling Unix and have used R
> on both windows and Unix before.  I am wondering when running R in this
> linux machine is there a way to be able to see plots pop up right on the
> screen after using the plot() function instead of saving it directly to a
> picture to view it later.  I am connecting to the linux machine remotely
> through my Windows machine through Putty, I also have Cygwin installed as
> well.  I realize this question may have been examined before in this forum
> and others and it seems a very common solution proposed depends on what
> machine you're accessing linux from remotely and if it's Windows you can
> install a X windows system to manage this which I know can be done through
> Cygwin.
>
> However I anticipate R on this linux machine to be used by several different
> users and it seems like it would be too difficult to anticipate what the
> architecture of all their local machines are as well as expect them to each
> install their own X windows manager as this is never present by default.  So
> what I am wondering is there an easy way to install a package or configure
> something on the Linux machine so that when any user logs in and starts up R
> they can execute the plot() function and a plot window will pop up without
> having to execute any additional commands preferably?  Also if there is a
> way I would be curious to know how to save the plots through that method as
> well unless it is still thru the usual functions (png, jpeg...)
>
> Appreciate the help!
>
>