[R] Updating R on an old Linux installation (was: Where is package gridBase?)

[Jonathan Dushoff]

I am running R 2.2.1 on a University-supported linux installation based
on Redhat EL3.  I am sorry that it did not occur to me to mention this
before; I updated R very recently, with the most recent version
available for EL3 at http://cran.cnr.berkeley.edu/bin/linux/redhat/el3/.

Looking at the gridBase documentation, I find that 2.2.1 is not in fact
the most recent version.  I have now spent hours trying to install 2.3.
No available binary rpms seem to work.  If I try the source code,
configure crashes with a complaint that I do not have X, which is false
(see below).

Do I need a new version of Linux?

Any help is appreciated.

Jonathan

----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ./configure

(lots of positive stuff)

checking for X... no
configure: error: --with-x=yes (default) and X11 headers/libs are not
available


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:27:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jonathan Dushoff <dushoff at eno.princeton.edu>
To: R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Where is package gridBase?

Trying to follow the instructions on the page
http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/05/12/17153.html (to make a
figure with an inset), I typed

> install.packages("gridBase", repos="http://cran.r-project.org")

and was rejected.

 	no package 'gridBase' at the repositories in: download.packages(pkgs,
 	destdir = tmpd, available = available,

I went to the FAQ at
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#Add_002don-packages-from-CRAN,
and was informed that gridBase was an add-on package available from
CRAN.

I also tried installing other packages using exactly the same command.

> install.packages("TeachingDemos", repos="http://cran.r-project.org")

These packages were apparently found:
 	trying URL
 	'http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/TeachingDemos_1.2.tar.gz'
 	Content type 'application/x-tar' length 66472 bytes
 	opened URL

 	(and so on)

I would appreciate any insight that anyone might have.

Jonathan