[R-sig-Debian] ubuntu configuration problem "Couldnt get a file descriptior referring to the console"

[Paul Johnson]

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Dirk Eddelbuettel<edd at debian.org> wrote:
>
> Paul,
>
> On 15 June 2009 at 08:49, Paul Johnson wrote:
> | Greetings to everybody in r-sig-debian land.
> |
> | I hope I have found the right place to ask this. If not, please refer me on...
>
> No this is the right place. So welcome!
>
> | I run R 2.9 on Ubuntu 9.04.
>
> That was 'a little underspecified'. "Whose R"? I.e. where did the binary come
> from?  CRAN? Or from sources and you built it yourself?  What is the
> architecture?
>

Ah, I'm using the ubuntu package from CRAN, I think. I download it
from the Iowa state mirror:

deb http://rh-mirror.linux.iastate.edu/CRAN/bin/linux/ubuntu jaunty/ #iastate R

> [ Ok, I figured it out comparing amd64 (at work) to i386 (at home). My
> R-on-Ubuntu at home has the same problem. ]
>

I've downloaded the R source code and I see where the problem
originates.  I think the DEB packages for ubuntu must be built on a
system that does not have any of the expected pdf viewers.  If you
look in the R configure script, it sets a macro variable for the
viewer

## PDF viewer
for ac_prog in ${R_PDFVIEWER} acroread acroread4 evince xpdf gv
gnome-gv ggv kghostview open gpdf

When I buld R on my system, it finds acroread and that gets put into
the /etc/R/Renviron file for the  PDFVIEWER.

On the system where R is built for CRAN, it must not find acroread,
evince, or anything until "open".

I *THINK* it might be slightly more "in style" to make the preferred
pdf viewer xdg-open.  I've had some ups and downs with xdg-open
because it is poorly documented (that's another trauma discussed
elsewhere).  But, if you are going by the Ubuntu community standard,
xdg-open should be first.

pj


-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas