[R] Weird tcl error with R on WSL Ubuntu

[Eric Berger]

Hi Erin,
I plugged your question into CatGPT 4o and it gave the following message,
which might help:

If R was installed *before* you installed the Tcl/Tk development packages,
it might not have been built with Tcl/Tk support.

Check if R has Tcl/Tk support:

> capabilities("tcltk")

If that returns FALSE, you need to *reinstall R now that Tcl/Tk is
available*:

sudo apt-get install r-base

  If you're already on latest r-base, you might need to purge and reinstall:

sudo apt-get remove --purge r-base
sudo apt-get install r-base

HTH,
Eric

On Sun, Mar 23, 2025 at 6:41 AM Erin Hodgess <erinm.hodgess using gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello everyone!
>
> Happy Spring.
>
> I'm trying to install the "geoR" package on my WSL Ubuntu.  It keeps giving
> me the following error:
> * byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
> Warning: S3 methods ‘as.character.tclObj’, ‘as.character.tclVar’,
> ‘as.double.tclObj’, ‘as.integer.tclObj’, ‘as.logical.tclObj’,
> ‘as.raw.tclObj’, ‘print.tclObj’, ‘[[.tclArray’, ‘[[<-.tclArray’,
> ‘$.tclArray’, ‘$<-.tclArray’, ‘names.tclArray’, ‘names<-.tclArray’,
> ‘length.tclArray’, ‘length<-.tclArray’, ‘tclObj.tclVar’, ‘tclObj<-.tclVar’,
> ‘tclvalue.default’, ‘tclvalue.tclObj’, ‘tclvalue.tclVar’,
> ‘tclvalue<-.default’, ‘tclvalue<-.tclVar’, ‘close.tkProgressBar’ were
> declared in NAMESPACE but not found
> Error: .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'tcltk', details:
>   call: fun(libname, pkgname)
>   error: Tcl/Tk support is not available on this system
>
> However, I just installed tcl 8.6 dev and tk 8.6 dev:
> sudo apt-get install tcl8.6-dev tk8.6-dev
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree... Done
> Reading state information... Done
> The following additional packages will be installed:
>   libxft-dev libxss-dev
> Suggested packages:
>   tcl8.6-doc tk8.6-doc
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   libxft-dev libxss-dev tcl8.6-dev tk8.6-dev
> 0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 1851 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 8377 kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
> Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 libxft-dev amd64
> 2.3.4-1 [52.4 kB]
> Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 libxss-dev amd64
> 1:1.2.3-1build2 [12.3 kB]
> Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 tcl8.6-dev amd64
> 8.6.12+dfsg-1build1 [1002 kB]
> Get:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 tk8.6-dev amd64
> 8.6.12-1build1 [785 kB]
> Fetched 1851 kB in 1s (2149 kB/s)
> Selecting previously unselected package libxft-dev:amd64.
> (Reading database ... 318949 files and directories currently installed.)
> Preparing to unpack .../libxft-dev_2.3.4-1_amd64.deb ...
> Unpacking libxft-dev:amd64 (2.3.4-1) ...
> Selecting previously unselected package libxss-dev:amd64.
> Preparing to unpack .../libxss-dev_1%3a1.2.3-1build2_amd64.deb ...
> Unpacking libxss-dev:amd64 (1:1.2.3-1build2) ...
> Selecting previously unselected package tcl8.6-dev:amd64.
> Preparing to unpack .../tcl8.6-dev_8.6.12+dfsg-1build1_amd64.deb ...
> Unpacking tcl8.6-dev:amd64 (8.6.12+dfsg-1build1) ...
> Selecting previously unselected package tk8.6-dev:amd64.
> Preparing to unpack .../tk8.6-dev_8.6.12-1build1_amd64.deb ...
> Unpacking tk8.6-dev:amd64 (8.6.12-1build1) ...
> Setting up tcl8.6-dev:amd64 (8.6.12+dfsg-1build1) ...
> Setting up libxss-dev:amd64 (1:1.2.3-1build2) ...
> Setting up libxft-dev:amd64 (2.3.4-1) ...
> Setting up tk8.6-dev:amd64 (8.6.12-1build1) ...
> Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
>
> Not entirely sure what to do now, since the tcl and tk are there.
>
> Any suggestions much appreciated.
>
> Sincerely,
> Erin
>
> Erin Hodgess, PhD
> mailto: erinm.hodgess using gmail.com
>
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>
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