<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Very useful discussion, and I think it is relevant for r-sig-macin many regards.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Not the least, it offers new users, whatever background, information on the different options on installing R. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I think it would be a very useful thing to add these installation methods to the CRAN page as they definitely have their merits - specifically when dealing with spatial data and GDAL versions and updates, and consistency of using the same GDAL.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In contrast to others, I had bad experiences with mixed installations - especially gdal. At the very least, it creates situations, where it is quite difficult to understand which gdal version is used. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I would therefore always recommend to stick to one installation method - MacPorts, homebrew, Fink or standard / frameworks.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Unfortunately, the resources of installing R under homebrew are scattered around - not the least, because there is no home for an “official” and “supported” method.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Cheers,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Rainer</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 21 Oct 2017, at 14:47, clark richards <<a href="mailto:clark.richards@gmail.com" class="">clark.richards@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">Interesting discussion, even if it is technically off-topic (i.e. is about<br class="">a Macports issue rather than an R issue).<br class=""><br class="">For myself, I have found instances where I needed to install R through<br class="">non-standard channels (my choice lately has been homebrew). This was<br class="">largely related to having the required system tools necessary for a package<br class="">development environment that permits the compilation of C/fortran code and<br class="">some system libraries (gdal, etc). As Don and others pointed out many such<br class="">dependencies should be available through the OSX R develop page (forget the<br class="">address right now ...), I have some older machines for which those<br class="">precompiled binaries do not install, including a 9 year old Macbook which<br class="">will run OSX up to ElCapitan but is not compatible with the newer binaries.<br class="">In that case, in order to have an R and gfortran that played together I had<br class="">to use homebrew as I could not find a binary gfortran that would work for<br class="">my architecture.<br class=""><br class="">I love working on OSX, though I have often lamented the difficulties in<br class="">getting a suitable package development environment configured -- at least<br class="">compared to Windows (just install Rtools.exe) and Linux (everything<br class="">required is easily installed from the distro package manager).<br class=""><br class="">Clark<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Message: 2<br class="">Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:02:33 +0000<br class="">From: "MacQueen, Don" <<a href="mailto:macqueen1@llnl.gov" class="">macqueen1@llnl.gov</a>><br class="">To: David Winsemius <<a href="mailto:dwinsemius@comcast.net" class="">dwinsemius@comcast.net</a>>, Rainer Krug<br class=""> <<a href="mailto:rainer_krug@icloud.com" class="">rainer_krug@icloud.com</a>><br class="">Cc: John <<a href="mailto:miaojpm@gmail.com" class="">miaojpm@gmail.com</a>>, "<a href="mailto:r-sig-mac@r-project.org" class="">r-sig-mac@r-project.org</a>"<br class=""> <<a href="mailto:r-sig-mac@r-project.org" class="">r-sig-mac@r-project.org</a>><br class="">Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Macports installation problem<br class="">Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:303CD3A3-230A-4D18-A190-E6C2D1160DF3@llnl.gov" class="">303CD3A3-230A-4D18-A190-E6C2D1160DF3@llnl.gov</a>><br class="">Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"<br class=""><br class="">The OP's question has inspired an interestingly large number of responses.<br class=""><br class="">One thing I'm curious about, and I don't think I've seen in the<br class="">discussion, is why the OP needed to install Cairo graphics with respect to<br class="">R (otherwise the question was indeed off-topic for R-sig-Mac).<br class=""><br class="">In summary (and I think this is reasonably consistent with other<br class="">responses; discussion to support my summary follows):<br class=""><br class="">1) Use CRAN R, install dependencies needed for extended R capability on<br class="">the OS as needed, from whatever source you prefer, or whichever is easiest<br class="">for R to use<br class="">2) If one chooses to install R using MacPorts or homebrew, be prepared to<br class="">exercise a greater depth of computer science smarts<br class="">3) Feel free to install other useful stuff using MacPorts or homebrew,<br class="">whichever one prefers; there is unlikely to be any conflict with R<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">In close to 20 years of using R on Mac, I have always been able to use<br class="">whatever capabilities R offers that I wanted to use, using the R provided<br class="">on CRAN. Nothing has ever motivated me to install R using MacPorts or<br class="">homebrew in order to obtain some capability that I couldn't have using<br class="">CRAN's binary download for Mac. This includes things like access to remote<br class="">Oracle databases, using various spatial packages built around sp and rgdal,<br class="">reading and writing MS Office files (both Word and Excel), building simple<br class="">tcl/tk interfaces, writing my own packages that link to Fortran, and<br class="">probably more that I don't remember. I see no necessity to install R from<br class="">MacPorts or homebrew. Of course, if one wishes to for whatever reason,<br class="">great! And I'm glad that people have wanted to make R available from those<br class="">package managers.<br class=""><br class="">I do use MacPorts, however, to get useful software such as an X Windows<br class="">aware version of emacs, ghostscript, and ImageMagick. Indeed, I even have<br class="">cairo installed using MacPorts, albeit on a 10.11.6 system, not a 10.12.x<br class="">system like the OP. (It's probably there as a dependency for some other<br class="">MacPorts package.) From that point of view, the OP's command to install it<br class="">using MacPorts was correct. I'd need more information to make a guess at<br class="">why it didn't succeed.<br class=""><br class="">Some R packages do, of course, depend on external libraries not provided<br class="">with R. One has to install these from somewhere. For example, the spatial<br class="">packages need GDAL. In this case, I use the KyngChaos frameworks, but I'm<br class="">aware that they're also available from MacPorts (and probably homebrew as<br class="">well). Could I use them instead? Probably; R is pretty good about letting<br class="">the user specify where dependencies are found.<br class=""><br class="">I do not know what R extended capability depends on installing Cairo<br class="">graphics on the OS. The X11() graphics device, as provided (I believe), has<br class="">a version that uses cairo. There is the Cairo R package, but it has a<br class="">binary version, at least for R on 10.11.x, so there's no need to install<br class="">Cairo graphics to install the Cairo package.<br class=""><br class="">-Don<br class=""><br class="">--<br class="">Don MacQueen<br class="">Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory<br class="">7000 East Ave., L-627<br class="">Livermore, CA 94550<br class="">925-423-1062<br class="">Lab cell 925-724-7509<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""></blockquote><br class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>[[alternative HTML version deleted]]<br class=""><br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">R-SIG-Mac mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org" class="">R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org</a><br class="">https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">--</div><div class=""><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" class="">Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)</span></div></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">University of Zürich</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" class="">Cell: +41 (0)78 630 66 57</span></div><div class=""><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" class=""><a href="mailto:Rainer@krugs.de" class="">email: Rainer@krugs.de</a></span></div><div class=""><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" class="">Skype: RMkrug</span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">PGP: 0x0F52F982</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<br class=""></div></body></html>