[R] installation: while running make, unable to run pdflatex on 'NEWS.tex'

[Richard O'Keefe]

On my system, pdftexcmds.sty can be found in
/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/generic/pdftexcmds/pdftexcmds.sty
A quick poking around with 'apt' and 'dpkg-query -L' told me that this
comes from the
texlive-latex-recommended
Ubuntu package.  So on my system, if I didn't already have this,
sudo apt install texlive-latex-recommended
should fix the problem.

On Sat, 2 Mar 2024 at 04:47, Benjamin Tyner <btyner using gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> A kind member of R-core suggested this is due to a misconfiguration on
> my system, and to post it to the mailing list for troubleshooting.
>
> When trying to build R version 4.3.3, in at least two places during the
> process it gives LaTeX errors of the form:
>
> (example 1)
>
>     you should 'make docs' now ...
>     make[1]: Entering directory '/home/btyner/R-4.3.3/doc'
>     creating doc/NEWS
>     creating doc/NEWS.pdf
>     Error in texi2dvi(file = file, pdf = TRUE, clean = clean, quiet =
>     quiet, :
>     unable to run pdflatex on 'NEWS.tex'
>     LaTeX errors:
>     ! LaTeX Error: File `pdftexcmds.sty' not found.
>
>     Type X to quit or <RETURN> to proceed,
>     or enter new name. (Default extension: sty)
>
>     ! Emergency stop.
>     <read *>
>
>     l.108 RequirePackage{pdftexcmds}[2018/09/10]
>     ^^M
>     ! ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
>     Calls: <Anonymous> -> texi2pdf -> texi2dvi
>     Execution halted
>     make[1]: /*/ [Makefile:74: NEWS.pdf] Error 1
>     make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/btyner/R-4.3.3/doc'
>     make: [Makefile:73: docs] Error 2 (ignored)
>
> (example 2)
>
>     make[1]: Entering directory '/home/btyner/R-4.3.3/src/library'
>     building/updating vignettes for package 'grid' ...
>     building/updating vignettes for package 'parallel' ...
>     building/updating vignettes for package 'utils' ...
>     building/updating vignettes for package 'stats' ...
>     processing 'reshape.Rnw'
>     Error: compiling TeX file 'reshape.tex' failed with message:
>     unable to run pdflatex on 'reshape.tex'
>     LaTeX errors:
>     ! LaTeX Error: File `pdftexcmds.sty' not found.
>
>     Type X to quit or <RETURN> to proceed,
>     or enter new name. (Default extension: sty)
>
>     ! Emergency stop.
>     <read *>
>
>     l.108 RequirePackage{pdftexcmds}[2018/09/10]
>     ^^M
>     ! ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
>     Execution halted
>     make[1]: ** [Makefile:103: vignettes] Error 1
>     make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/btyner/R-4.3.3/src/library'
>     make: ** [Makefile:81: vignettes] Error 2
>
> here is my |pdflatex --version| info:
>
>     pdfTeX 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.22 (TeX Live 2022/dev/Debian)
>     kpathsea version 6.3.4/dev
>     Compiled with libpng 1.6.37; using libpng 1.6.37
>     Compiled with zlib 1.2.11; using zlib 1.2.11
>     Compiled with xpdf version 4.03
>
> my platform info:
>
>     Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>     Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
>
> I installed from this file with corresponding md5sum
>
>     R-4.3.3.tar.xz 5602f5996107c346dba12a16e866d2e2
>
> The specific commands I ran which led to the error were:
>
>     wget https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-4/R-4.3.3.tar.xz
>     mkdir R433
>     tar xJf R-4.3.3.tar.xz
>     cd R-4.3.3
>     ./configure --prefix=/home/btyner/R433
>     make
>
> Happy to provide any additional information needed.
>
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