[R-SIG-Mac] Problems loading Rcmdr on a Mac 10.7.2 and a Mac 10.6.8

[John Fox]

Dear Simon,

Thank you very much for these clarifications (and also for responding to
David and Sarah's posts in this thread). I think that I understand what's
going on now, and will add a note to the Rcmdr installation instructions to
run Software Update prior to installing R, the Rcmdr, and (if necessary)
XQuartz.

(Sarah: You could try asking your student(s) to run Software Update, and
then reinstall R and the Rcmdr package. If you do this, can you report to
the list whether it works?)

I do have one further question: I understand now that R will use an older
X-11 in preference to XQuartz if XQuartz doesn't install a symbolic link to
/usr/X11. Is there a reason for this? That is, why not have R use XQuartz in
preference to another X-11 if XQuartz is installed -- or to pick the newest
X-server, if it's possible to ascertain that?

Thanks again for your help,
 John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Urbanek [mailto:urbanek at research.att.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 9:25 AM
> To: John Fox
> Cc: David Winsemius; Sarah Hardy; r-sig-mac
> Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Problems loading Rcmdr on a Mac 10.7.2 and a
> Mac 10.6.8
> 
> On Sep 19, 2013, at 9:05 AM, John Fox wrote:
> 
> > Dear David,
> >
> > On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 01:04:18 -0700
> > David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sep 18, 2013, at 8:47 PM, John Fox wrote:
> >>
> >
> > . . .
> >
> >>> It also seems apparent from the error message that there's a
> mismatch between the version of Tcl/Tk, presumably the one supplied
> with the R distribution, and the version of X-Windows.
> >>
> >> That is not what I am reading. libfreetype.6 version 13 is the
> reported problem with  a need to update to version 14.
> >>
> >
> > Do you know where libfreetype.6 comes from? Is it installed
> independently of Tcl/Tk and XQuartz? If so, do you know how to update
> it?
> >
> > . . .
> >
> >> I'm not really a student but maybe this will be useful anyway. There
> is a version of Tk at:
> >>
> >> http://r.research.att.com/src/tk8.6.0-src.tar.gz
> >>
> >> ... which appears to be the most up-to-date version. I'm actually
> running version 8.5 with OSX 10.7.5
> >>
> >
> > Version 8.6-0 of Tcl/Tk for X-Windows is included in the R 3.0.1
> installer for Mac OS X. Is it possible that it doesn't get installed if
> there's already a Tcl/Tk for X-Windows installed?
> >
> > . . .
> >
> >>
> >> The error message below says that libfreetype.6 is an old version
> and that you need version 14.0 for libtk8.6
> >>
> >> From Unix cmd line:
> >>
> >> otool -L /opt/local/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib
> >>
> >> # ---- reports ___________
> >> /opt/local/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib:
> >> 	/opt/local/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib (compatibility version 16.0.0,
> current version 16.0.0)
> >> 	/opt/local/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current
> version 1.2.7)
> >> 	/opt/local/lib/libbz2.1.0.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0,
> current version 1.0.6)
> >> 	/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current
> version 125.2.11)
> >>
> >
> > So tcltk and the Rcmdr 2.0-0 work on your system because you have a
> sufficiently up-to-date libfreetype.6. It would be additionally helpful
> to be able to answer the following questions:
> >
> > (1) Why is it that some users have old versions of libfreetype.6.
> >
> 
> guess: they don't use Software Update and thus have outdated system
> libraries
> 
> 
> > (2) Why doesn't installing the newest versions of R (which includes
> Tcl/Tk) and XQuartz, not solve this problem?
> >
> 
> guess: they are running an older version or didn't install R properly
> from the CRAN package
> 
> 
> > (3) What can users experiencing this problem do to fix it?
> >
> 
> 
> Run Software Update for (1) , re-install R for (2)?
> 
> We have only 3rd hand report here so we're reduced to guessing so far.
> As I said, one important thing is that we uses system X11 and not
> XQuartz so installing XQuartz has no effect if there is a system X11
> installed. However, on an up-todate system there should be no problems.
> 
> Cheers,
> S
> 
> 
> > If I knew the answers to these questions, I could update the Rcmdr
> installation notes to help users avoid the problem.
> >
> > Thank you for your help,
> > John