[R-SIG-Mac] Compiling 2.6.0 on OS 10.3.9: success [was: Compiling 2.5.1 on OSX Panther (James Kyle)]

[Jari Oksanen]

I have now succeeded in compiling R 2.6.0 on MacOS 10.3.9. The history
of the problems was:

1. ./configure test introduced in R 2.4.0 regarded MacOS 10.3.9 vecLib
as incomplete BLAS, and ignored arguments --with-blas='-framework
vecLib' --with-lapack, and decided to build dlapack irrespective of
configure arguments.

2. Building dlapack failed.

It seems that building dlapack failed only if configure specified
--disable-R-framework. With --enable-R-framework (default) the building
ended normally, and the resulting binary passed make check. 

The reason why I used --disable-R-framework was that I was trying to
build a command line version of R for /usr/local/bin and simultaneously
keep the old R-2.3.0 that works with the R GUI (R.app). Switches
--disable-R-framework --prefix=/usr/local/bin looked like a sensible
choice for me. With enabled framework I also can use the command line,
but now I need a symbolic link deep from the heart of the framework (in
non-default location) to /usr/local/bin/R.

The reason why I wanted to have only a command line version was that
R.app (R GUI) was documented to need MacOS 10.4.4 and building of R.app
is reported to need version of XCode that is not available for MacOS
10.3.9 (latest available XCode version is 1.5, R.app claims to require
XCode 2.4.0  --r.research.att comm page claims that R requires that
toolset, but seemingly it doesn't expect for the GUI). 

I did some other things under way that may have contributed to the
success, like upgraded my XCode toolset to 1.5 (although I had to
register and approve US sanctions against some countries). I also tried
this with and without fink, but the build succeeded in both cases
(except that html help pages could be built only with fink, since the
makeinfo is < 4.7 in MacOS 10.3.9).

Best wishes, Jari Oksanen
-- 
Jari Oksanen <jari.oksanen at oulu.fi>