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

[John Fox]

Dear Brian,

On Fri, 20 Sep 2013 07:49:05 +0100
 Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 20/09/2013 01:52, John Fox wrote:
> > Dear Sarah,
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Sarah Hardy [mailto:sarah.hardy at maine.edu]
> >> Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 8:08 PM
> >> To: John Fox
> >> Cc: Simon Urbanek; David Winsemius; r-sig-mac
> >> Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Problems loading Rcmdr on a Mac 10.7.2 and a
> >> Mac 10.6.8
> >>
> >> Running the "Software Update" and reinstalling R and Rcmdr worked for
> >> the student with the 10.7.2. We did not reinstall XQuartz. Now I will
> >
> > I'm glad that this worked. Apparently, the student had an old version of
> > X-Windows that was updated by Software Update. As Simon explained, in this
> > situation installing XQuartz is irrelevant because the other version of
> > X-Windows is invoked by R.
> >
> >> see if it works for the others. BTW - I have identified at least one
> >> student with a 10.6.8 who had no problems installing R and Rcmdr
> >> without installing XQuartz (per my instructions) - am going to check
> >> with other students tomorrow.
> >
> > If the student installed a sufficiently up-to-date X-Windows, that should
> > work, and apparently did. The X-Windows used needn't be XQuartz. My new
> > instructions suggest that everyone install XQuartz because that will give
> > them an up-to-date X-Windows if they don't already have X-windows installed,
> > and will do no harm if they do have another X-Windows.
> 
> I am not so sure about that.  It will do no harm running CRAN binary R.  But it does mean that there are multiple versions of X11 things about 
> and that will cause problems for other things (including possibly installing packages from source).

Thanks for pointing out this potential problem.

Oh well -- I hoped to have a simple set of instructions, and having everyone install XQuartz followed what I took to be Simon's suggestion (below). 

Almost all of the problems people have with the Rcmdr package are on the Mac OS X platform, and since most of these people are not sophisticated in their computer use, having simple instructions is important.

How about the following?

(1) Run System Update.

(2) Check whether X-Windows is installed. (I can restore my previous instructions about how to check.)

(3) If X-Windows isn't installed, install XQuartz.

etc.

Best,
 John

. . .

> >> 	> -----Original Message-----
> >> 	> From: Simon Urbanek [mailto:simon.urbanek at r-project.org]
> >>
> >> 	> Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 11:49 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
> >> 	>
> >>
> >> 	> Well, the I think it reads far more complicated that in needs to
> >> be.
> >> 	> You should have a quickstart section that just says:
> >> 	>
> >> 	> * Install R 3.0.1 or later
> >> 	> * Install XQuartz from http://xquartz.macosforge.org
> >> 	>
> >> 	> Done. Current R only supports 10.6.8+ and so does XQuartz so the
> >> above
> >> 	> covers everything that is supported right now (I recall having
> >> that
> >> 	> discussion earlier...).
> >> 	>
> >> 	> Then you can have troubleshooting section which says
> >> 	>
> >> 	> a) make sure you installed R with Tcl/Tk (it is the default) -
> >> if in
> >> 	> doubt, re-install R from CRAN
> >> 	> b) use Software Update
> >> 	>
> >> 	> Then you can have a technical section with the details you show
> >> below,
> >> 	> but 99% of users should not need to read it.
> >> 	>
> >> 	> Cheers,
> >> 	> Simon

. . .