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

[Simon Urbanek]

Alexey,

On Oct 8, 2006, at 4:56 AM, iit512 wrote:

> 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.
>

This seems like a broken upgrade of your system or damaged image.  
Possibly you're fetching the outdated installer from the previous  
system. I have seen a similar problem on a broken system (it wouldn't  
open any installer files) long time ago. In that instance the OS was  
defective and had to be re-installed. I don't know if that is your  
case (I hope not), but the images work perfectly well on all systems  
I tested. You may want to check the MD5 sum to make sure the image is  
ok. There is no such thing as "R.info" in any of the packages.


> 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!
>

Again, this looks as if your installer is broken. The package  
instructs the installer to look for
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.4/Resources/lib/libR.dylib
You may want to check manually - if it is there, then it's definitely  
the installer.

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

Get a working system ;)? No, seriously, I cannot reproduce any of the  
problems you illustrated. If you can reproduce the problems on  
another system, please let me know.


> 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).
>

This will be an X11 and/or Tcl/Tk font issue. You can try your luck  
on R-help, consult any leads concerning cyrillic fonts in X11 on the  
web and/or ask the maintainer Rcmdr about font handling. The issue  
should not be Mac-specific, as X11 is used on all unix variants.


> 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.
>

Same as above, you may want to ask the Rcmdr maintainer.

Cheers,
Simon