[R] need help for building R in Ubuntu 8.04

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 02:29:10PM +0200, Martin Maechler wrote:
> >>>>> "EH" == Erin Hodgess <erinm.hodgess at gmail.com>
> >>>>>     on Sun, 25 May 2008 13:27:04 -0500 writes:
> 
>     EH> Try: ./configure --with-x=no
> 
> well......  no!  really don't.

Seconded. 

At best this qualified for the 'then do not do it' school of advice to the 'it hurts when I do this'.
But it truly missed the underlying issue. See below.

> If you want to enjoy a Linux system and building from the
> source, and then maybe learn how that is happening, learning
> about shell scripts and 'make' and ...
> then rather do get the extra ubuntu packages needed.

Or if you 'just' want to run it, install Ubuntu and learn to take
advantage of the work of others.

> The advice (below) to get the 'xorg-dev'
> is definitely good advice. I have it on the list of packages
> I'd always want to install in addition to the basic
> ubuntu/debian list.
> 
> But you most probably will find that you need a few more tools /
> libraries / headers for your ubuntu system such that you can
> build R with all the bells and whistles possible.
> 
> There's the Debian (and "hence" Ubuntu) package
> 'r-base-dev'
> which contains 'r-base' (i.e. a *binary* version of R; the one
> Dirk Eddelbuettel mentioned),
> but also most of the compilers/libraries/... that you'd want to
> build R from the sources.

Just to be a bit more precise:

i)   'apt-get install r-base' will get you r-base-core and all the
     recommended packages --- use this if you want to _run_ R

ii)  'apt-get install r-base-dev' will get all the common header files, 
     as well as r-base-core use this if you _also want to build /
     install R packages_ incl from CRAN

iii) 'apt-get build-dep r-base' will get you _build dependencies_ for
     R and is probably what Martin wanted here.

> Last time I did get 'r-base-dev' on a "virgin" ubuntu system,
> I vaguely remember that it did not contain *really* all the
> tools I'd wanted, but almost all.

Bug reports are always welcome and a more constructive form of moving
things forward than an off-hand comment here :-) Note that I tend not
to get the ones filed against Ubuntu so file against Debian please.

> e.g., you may also want the two packages
> 
>   tcl8.4-dev
>   tk8.4-dev

Just curious: what did you need them for ? In case you wanted to build
R, see iii) above as a possibly more focussed way to get there.

Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.