[R-SIG-Mac] Problems with R.mpkg and Tcl/Tk

[iit512]

Dear R-Mac Community,

Since official R now exists only for Tiger, I upgraded my Panther 10.3.9 to 10.4.3, then to 10.4.8. After that, I had several troubles regarding installation of R. First of all, R.mpkg neither from R.2.3.1.dmg, nor from R-2.4.0.dmg, nor from R-2.4.0-mini.dmg open in installer. Console had the message "Can't open package /Volumes/R-2.4.0-mini/R.mpkg (there was an error reading the file R.info)." Yes, this file (R.info) is absent in R.mpkg/Contents/Resources/English.lproj. Unfortunately, my efforts to create such a file manually were useless. 

Then I have started the installation of separate packages from /Packages folder of disk image, despite the warning (-- Please use R installer in the root of this image! --), because I had no other choice except compiling from source. The installation of R framework went well, but R-GUI.pkg refused to install with a message "You cannot install this software on this volume. Requires R framework version 2.4.x" -- but R framework 2.4.0 was already installed and worked from console! 

gcc403.pkg and tcltk.pkg installed OK. To have the R GUI, I downloaded "nightly build", and this is filally works. 

So, my first question, how to avoid this troubles in future?

The second question concerns Tcl/Tk and R Commander. I am the Russian translator of this package (and also of R itself), so I am interesting how to avoid the really ugly-looking Russian fonts in Tcl/Tk? (See the attachment for an example).

And also, when I forget to load X11 before calling R Commander, the first time tcl/tk interface finishes with error, which is OK. But if I load X11, and call R Commander the second time, R hangs forever (and no message on console). If I run X11 first, R Commander works relatively well. 

My computer is: 
Machine Name:iMac  
Machine Model: PowerMac4,5  
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)  
Number Of CPUs:	1  
CPU Speed: 800 MHz  
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB  
Memory:	1 GB  
Bus Speed: 100 MHz  
Boot ROM Version: 4.4.5f3 
System Version:	Mac OS X 10.4.8 (8L127)  
Kernel Version:	Darwin 8.8.0

I am sorry for long message. Any help will be appreciated.

With best wishes,

Alexey Shipunov