[R-SIG-Mac] Macports installation problem

[clark richards]

Interesting. Thanks for the "gentle reminder". I haven't visited that page
in some time, because it has been quite awhile since the gfortran-4.2.3
packages were appropriate, and the bit about the Makevars I think is new
since the last time I had to go through setting up a machine.

Clark

On Sun, Oct 22, 2017 at 2:31 PM, David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net>
wrote:

>
> > On Oct 21, 2017, at 5:47 AM, clark richards <clark.richards at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Interesting discussion, even if it is technically off-topic (i.e. is
> about a Macports issue rather than an R issue).
> >
> > For myself, I have found instances where I needed to install R through
> non-standard channels (my choice lately has been homebrew). This was
> largely related to having the required system tools necessary for a package
> development environment that permits the compilation of C/fortran code and
> some system libraries (gdal, etc). As Don and others pointed out many such
> dependencies should be available through the OSX R develop page (forget the
> address right now ...), I have some older machines for which those
> precompiled binaries do not install, including a 9 year old Macbook which
> will run OSX up to ElCapitan but is not compatible with the newer binaries.
> In that case, in order to have an R and gfortran that played together I had
> to use homebrew as I could not find a binary gfortran that would work for
> my architecture.
>
> I have two older Macs of roughly the same vintage, both running El Cap.
> Regarding gfortran for package devel, I wondered if you had noticed that
> advice at the top of the CRAN Tools page to add some locations to a
> Makevars file:
>
> https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/tools/
>
> I was having difficulties until someone gently reminded me to "read the
> manual".
>
> GDAL (and associated packages) are generally obtained from Kyngchaos and
> that has been the case for as long as I remember.
>
> --
> David.
>
>
> >
> > I love working on OSX, though I have often lamented the difficulties in
> getting a suitable package development environment configured -- at least
> compared to Windows (just install Rtools.exe) and Linux (everything
> required is easily installed from the distro package manager).
> >
> > Clark
> >
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:02:33 +0000
> > From: "MacQueen, Don" <macqueen1 at llnl.gov>
> > To: David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net>, Rainer Krug
> >         <rainer_krug at icloud.com>
> > Cc: John <miaojpm at gmail.com>, "r-sig-mac at r-project.org"
> >         <r-sig-mac at r-project.org>
> > Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Macports installation problem
> > Message-ID: <303CD3A3-230A-4D18-A190-E6C2D1160DF3 at llnl.gov>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> > The OP's question has inspired an interestingly large number of
> responses.
> >
> > One thing I'm curious about, and I don't think I've seen in the
> discussion, is why the OP needed to install Cairo graphics with respect to
> R (otherwise the question was indeed off-topic for R-sig-Mac).
> >
> > In summary (and I think this is reasonably consistent with other
> responses; discussion to support my summary follows):
> >
> > 1)  Use CRAN R, install dependencies needed for extended R capability on
> the OS as needed, from whatever source you prefer, or whichever is easiest
> for R to use
> > 2)  If one chooses to install R using MacPorts or homebrew, be prepared
> to exercise a greater depth of computer science smarts
> > 3)  Feel free to install other useful stuff using MacPorts or homebrew,
> whichever one prefers; there is unlikely to be any conflict with R
> >
> >
> > In close to 20 years of using R on Mac, I have always been able to use
> whatever capabilities R offers that I wanted to use, using the R provided
> on CRAN. Nothing has ever motivated me to install R using MacPorts or
> homebrew in order to obtain some capability that I couldn't have using
> CRAN's binary download for Mac. This includes things like access to remote
> Oracle databases, using various spatial packages built around sp and rgdal,
> reading and writing MS Office files (both Word and Excel), building simple
> tcl/tk interfaces, writing my own packages that link to Fortran, and
> probably more that I don't remember. I see no necessity to install R from
> MacPorts or homebrew. Of course, if one wishes to for whatever reason,
> great! And I'm glad that people have wanted to make R available from those
> package managers.
> >
> > I do use MacPorts, however, to get useful software such as an X Windows
> aware version of emacs, ghostscript, and ImageMagick. Indeed, I even have
> cairo installed using MacPorts, albeit on a 10.11.6 system, not a 10.12.x
> system like the OP. (It's probably there as a dependency for some other
> MacPorts package.) From that point of view, the OP's command to install it
> using MacPorts was correct. I'd need more information to make a guess at
> why it didn't succeed.
> >
> > Some R packages do, of course, depend on external libraries not provided
> with R. One has to install these from somewhere.  For example, the spatial
> packages need GDAL. In this case, I use the KyngChaos frameworks, but I'm
> aware that they're also available from MacPorts (and probably homebrew as
> well). Could I use them instead? Probably; R is pretty good about letting
> the user specify where dependencies are found.
> >
> > I do not know what R extended capability depends on installing Cairo
> graphics on the OS. The X11() graphics device, as provided (I believe), has
> a version that uses cairo. There is the Cairo R package, but it has a
> binary version, at least for R on 10.11.x, so there's no need to install
> Cairo graphics to install the Cairo package.
> >
> > -Don
> >
> > --
> > Don MacQueen
> > Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
> > 7000 East Ave., L-627
> > Livermore, CA 94550
> > 925-423-1062
> > Lab cell 925-724-7509
> >
> >
>
> David Winsemius
> Alameda, CA, USA
>
> 'Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.'
>  -Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law
>
>
>
>
>
>

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