[R-sig-Debian] Installation woes for rattle - partial success.

[Prof. John C Nash]

Below is how I got a clean Ubuntu Karmic VM to start rattle. I didn't actually try 
calculations. Mixture of Paul and Dirk advice.

- Changed /etc/apt/sources to use the CRAN debian repository for Ubuntu Karmic, i.e.,
    deb http://probability.ca/cran/bin/linux/ubuntu karmic/

    I did NOT use cran2deb.

- Installed (via apt-get) tk-dev and tcl-dev and r-base

- started R as root  (but kept a second root terminal open for apt-get etc.)

   install.packages("XML") complained of no xml2-config, so installed
   libxml2-dev via apt
   XML then installs in R
   pmml also installs
   rattle "installs", but when started wants RGtk2. I chose to install
   via apt (r-cran-rgtk2)
   rattle then starts in R, but complains it wants cairodevice
   via apt installed r-cran-cairodevice
   Same process got a complaint about colorspace
   via apt installed r-cran-colorspace.

This gave a clean startup.

Should this be in a script to save other folk troubles?

For Jaunty and Hardy and debian stable it looks like the dependencies ask for versions 
that are not available. Is there a recommended tool for revealing the required versions? 
The R error msg "The RGtk2 package did not find libglade installed. Please install it." is 
really less than informative. Dirk recommends a scalpel rather than a chainsaw, but I feel 
like I'm using the scalpel to fell a redwood 20' across.

JN