[Rd] R install problem on MacOS 10.5.1 (PR#10476)

[Hin-Tak Leung]

Simon Urbanek wrote:
<snipped>
> Because it *is* the gcc files? (Note the "/local" in the paths.) Full R 
> comes with GNU Fortran 4.2.1, because Apple doesn't offer any Fortran 
> compiler and most other Fortran compiler binaries for Mac OS X out on 
> the web are not really working well. It installs in /usr/local.
<snipped>

This is what I don't understand or agree on. The R windows installer 
does *not* try to install any of mingw gcc or Rtools. Okay, you cannot 
install source packages on windows without mingw gcc or Rtools, but 
that's a caveate.

If I were an Apple user (which I am not), there is a chance that I might 
have my own gcc/gfortran in /usr/local and I surely do not want R to 
temper with them. If you need runtime libgfortran support, you should
just bundle gfortran.so and gcc.so if necesary (there are static
alternatives), and put those in R's area.

(recently, I took enough trouble of bootstrapping gfortran 4.2.x
for cross-compiling - see mingw-devel mailing list archive - because 
mingw don't distribute that as binary. I have win32 R under wine, but I 
really would *not* appreciate if win32 R tries to do anything 
substantially more than just put itself in a directory...).

<snipped>
> No. The failure is due to a strange symlink in /usr/local/lib that 
> points to itself. I suspect that this has something to do with an 
> upgrade from Tiger to Leopard or Xcode 3 installation and that Apple 
> actually creates that infinite symlink. Given that there is 
> "/usr/loca/lib 1" lingering around, I'd bet that
> 
> sudo rm /usr/local/lib
> sudo mv '/usr/local/lib 1' /usr/local/lib
> 
> will fix the problem.

<snipped>

Yeah, that apple box is *so* broken.:-).

HTL