myDSL Extensions (deprecated) :: R myDSL effort - dependancy problem

softgun, I know I'm kind of putting this all in the wrong spot, but since this post is about making hard dsl packages, I guess it's OK.

Part of the problem compiling is knowing what you need to have installed first. If you look at the debian packages page for the postgresql package, you can get a quick feel for the dependancies you need. Right off the bat, I see that python, zlib1g, and the MIT Kerberos runtime libraries are required that postgresql can run. You might need mailx as well, I don't know though. perhaps if it isn't found at configuration time compilation can continue without it.

As far as some of your other problems, I see that adduser is required. Why? I believe that the installation creates a postgresql user. I saw on this postgresql installation tutorial that you need to be that user in order to configure the package. If you are running from the liveCD, the files that handle users and passwords are links to the CD, so they are not writable. you might want to look at the /usr/sbin/addusers.lua and /etc/init.d/ssh_addusers scripts to see how dsl manages to make this happen. You are going to need to add back in a user when you run your shell script to initialize your package.

I also see from that tutorial that /etc/ld.so.conf needs to be apended and ldconfig needs to be run. I've had trouble with ld.so.conf and ld.so.cache and packages before because they are links to the CD and therefore not writable. I've tried replacing the links with their respective files on the CD, adding the lines I needed to ld.so.conf by looking at the ld.so.conf file after installation the first time, and then calling ldconfig.

Have you tried installing to the liveCD by downloading the debs using apt-get install postgresql? it's tough but do-able. You run into a problem with "group add failed" Get around this by running sudo /etc/init.d/ssh_addusers before installing. The second problem I ran into was that /etc/mailname was a link and couldn't be modified. You can use:

rm /etc/mailname
cp /KNOPPIX/etc/mailname /etc/mailname

To get around that. Then it requires a group and two new users to exist. I ran:

useradd uucp
useradd mail
groupadd mail

I was then able to get the packages to install, but I don't know enough to know how to start up the server. At least that's a place for you to start.

Thanks and more thanks! How very kind of you to do all this. I will try all you said and give it a go ASAP. Then i will get back to you.

Being impatient I know, but any idea how long it will take to get into the Testing area?

Shame on me, such impatience, tsk tsk! It's in Testing!

Looking good! Responds fine.

Problems so far:

1. All the libraries seem to load and function so far, apart from tcltk:
> library(tcltk)
Error in firstlib(which.lib.loc, package) :
Tcl/Tk support is not available on this system
Error in library(tcltk) : .First.lib failed for 'tcltk'

This is a pity, as using:
options(pager=tkpager)
gives 'Help' files in separate windows, so you can readily cut & paste examples of code from help into the console.

Loading the tcltk myDSL doesn't seem to help.

2. If I want to use another shell (eg. to have black text on white bg) I have to dig deeper to get R (/ramdisk/opt/R/bin/R) - it'd be nice if R was on the path? Or not?

Anyway, fantastic! Perhaps I should be handing students DSL disks with this on....

Oh, and having shut R down, I can't re-start it from the myDSL R menu entry. I get:

dsl@box:/opt/R/bin$ R
mkdir: Cannot create directory `/tmp/Rtmp1114-9289': Permission denied
mkdir: Cannot create directory `/tmp/Rtmp1114': Permission denied
ERROR: cannot create temporary R session directory

Unless I start it directly as root from a shell.

PS. Is there somewhere else I should be sending reports on this, as it's now in Testing?

Next Page...
original here.