Happy to report that running the "Software Update" (after "Repair Disk
Permissions"), installing XQuartz, and reinstalling R and Rcmdr did the
trick for student with the 10.6.8.
Two other students with 10.6.8 Macs reported success running the "Software
Update" and reinstalling R and Rcmdr ( I do not know if they had previously
installed XQuartz or not).
Of note is that a student with a Leopard got everything installed the first
time through without any assistance!

Many thanks to John for the Rcmdr package, to Simon for solving these (and
earlier) problems, and to all others for their interest in this lengthy
thread.

Cheers,
Sarah



On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 7:54 AM, John Fox <jfox@mcmaster.ca> wrote:

> Dear Brian,
>
> On Fri, 20 Sep 2013 07:49:05 +0100
>  Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> > On 20/09/2013 01:52, John Fox wrote:
> > > Dear Sarah,
> > >
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: Sarah Hardy [mailto:sarah.hardy@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@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
>
> . . .
>
>


-- 

Sarah Hardy, PhD
Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Maine Farmington
207-778-7124    Office: Brinkman 100

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

