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

[(Ted Harding)]

On 04-Jun-10 20:26:50, vaneet wrote:
> So just so I understand properly,  if there are multiple users
> connecting to this remote linux machine in which I installed R
> and lets just say they all have Windows machines. To view plots
> they would all need to have an SSH client and an X server installed
> on their local machine to do this?

Yes.

> You said that X11 is the default graphic device on Linux, isn't
> there some way of using X11 in R to show the plot while logged in
> to the remote linux machine?
> 
> Thanks

It is important to understand one thing about the X11 system.
Namely, that the notions of X-server and X-client are the oposite
way round from what a user might naively expect.

When you are sitting at one machine, remotely logged in to another
machine which is running some program which you have requested,
you are likely to think that your machine is the client, requesting
service from the remote machine. So you request an action from the
remote machine, and the remote machine serves you with the result.

However, an X-capable program (say R), running on the remote machine,
will need to enable you to see (e.g.) graphics results computed by
thbe remote machine. This it will do by sending requests to your local
machine to make marks on the local screen. So your local machine must
be running a program which can accept these requests and make the
marks on the screen. Thus the local machine is now the *server*,
responding to requests from the remote machine (the *client*).

Thus an X system must be installed on your local machine so that it
can respond to the requests from the remote machine. I.e. your local
machine must be capable of acting as an X-server.

Therefore you must install X on your local machine.

Hoping this helps!
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
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Date: 04-Jun-10                                       Time: 21:45:46
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