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

[Benjamin Tyner]

Thank you Ivan and Richard...

Short version: a simple "sudo apt install texlive" fixed it.

Longer version (attempt at a post-mortem): previously (back on 
2023-11-05) on this same system I built R version 4.3.2; and 
/home/btyner/R432/lib/R/doc/NEWS.pdf does exist (and is a valid pdf with 
48 pages) from that same install. Likewise before that on 2023-07-02 I 
built R version 4.3.1 and the NEWS.pdf is fine (47 pages) there too.

Still not sure how it happened that my system lost track of the 
necessary texlive add-ons at some point between 2023-11-05 and now, but 
running "sudo apt install texlive" made it clear that 
texlive-latex-recommended was indeed one of the culprits as suggested by 
Richard.

    The following additional packages will be installed:
       fonts-texgyre tex-gyre texlive-fonts-recommended
    texlive-latex-recommended tipa
    Suggested packages:
       texlive-fonts-recommended-doc texlive-latex-recommended-doc
    texlive-luatex texlive-pstricks tipa-doc
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
       fonts-texgyre tex-gyre texlive texlive-fonts-recommended
    texlive-latex-recommended tipa

In an attempt to figure out what might have happened after 2023-11-05,

    zgrep texlive /var/log/dpkg.log.*.gz

revealed some texlive related activity back on 2023-11-23 but no 
indication that anything was removed...

    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:02:55 install
    texlive-binaries:amd64 <none> 2021.20210626.59705-1ubuntu0.1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:02:55 status half-installed
    texlive-binaries:amd64 2021.20210626.59705-1ubuntu0.1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:02:56 status unpacked
    texlive-binaries:amd64 2021.20210626.59705-1ubuntu0.1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:02:56 install texlive-base:all
    <none> 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:02:56 status half-installed
    texlive-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:02 status unpacked
    texlive-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:02 install
    texlive-latex-base:all <none> 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:02 status half-installed
    texlive-latex-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:04 status unpacked
    texlive-latex-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:05 configure
    texlive-binaries:amd64 2021.20210626.59705-1ubuntu0.1 <none>
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:05 status unpacked
    texlive-binaries:amd64 2021.20210626.59705-1ubuntu0.1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:05 status half-configured
    texlive-binaries:amd64 2021.20210626.59705-1ubuntu0.1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:05 status installed
    texlive-binaries:amd64 2021.20210626.59705-1ubuntu0.1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:05 configure
    texlive-base:all 2021.20220204-1 <none>
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:05 status unpacked
    texlive-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:05 status half-configured
    texlive-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:09 status installed
    texlive-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:09 configure
    texlive-latex-base:all 2021.20220204-1 <none>
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:09 status unpacked
    texlive-latex-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:09 status half-configured
    texlive-latex-base:all 2021.20220204-1
    /var/log/dpkg.log.4.gz:2023-11-23 11:03:09 status installed
    texlive-latex-base:all 2021.20220204-1

One more thing:

    HISTTIMEFORMAT="%Y-%m-%d %T " history | grep texlive

revealed that I ran "sudo apt install texlive-latex-base" back on 
2024-02-19, so maybe that had something to do with it. Sadly the shell 
history does not exist prior to that date.


On 3/2/24 02:42, Ivan Krylov wrote:
> В Fri, 1 Mar 2024 10:46:53 -0500
> Benjamin Tyner <btyner using gmail.com> пишет:
>
>> my platform info:
>>
>>      Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>>      Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
> Quick things first: have you installed all the build-dependencies? apt
> build-dep r-base (maybe with --install-suggests? haven't tried that in
> a while) should do that. In particular, the build dependencies include
> texlive-fonts-extra and texlive-latex-extra. That's a lot of packages,
> but some of them are required to compile LaTeX documents produced by R.
>
>>      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.
> Can you compile a minimal LaTeX document? Something like:
>
> \documentclass{article}
> \begin{document}
> \[ \mathbf{y} = \mathbf{X} \beta \]
> \end{document}
>
> Does tools::texi2pdf('THISFILE.tex') fail with a similar error message?
>