"--with-x=yes (default) and X11 headers/libs are not available"

Question

I am trying to install R in our cluster (the cluster is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6), where I don't have root access. I tried:

$wget http://cran.rstudio.com/src/base/R-3/R-3.1.1.tar.gz
$ tar xvf R-3.1.1.tar.gz
$ cd R-3.1.1
$ ./configure --prefix=/home/Kryo/R-3.1.1

But I am getting an error:

configure: error: --with-x=yes (default) and X11 headers/libs are not available

Solution

According to this thread, you should just install libXt-devel package and you should be fine.

But perhaps you also should install xorg-x11-server-devel and libX11-devel?

That would be:

yum install xorg-x11-server-devel libX11-devel libXt-devel

Comments

[jordanm]

The error message looks pretty clear. Either install X11 development files or use --without-x.

[Basile Starynkevitch]

Did you consider asking your sysadmin? Can't you use R on your own Linux workstation or laptop? A supercomputer is generally supposed to crunch numbers in efficient, compiled, code. You could prototype your algorithms on your laptop, then, if you need the power of your supercomputer, rewrite in C++ or Fortran (or even OpenCL) the critical parts of it. HPC are generally not bought to run interpreted code!

[Kryo]

@BasileStarynkevitch. I am working on analysing next generation sequencing data which needs a huge computational space. Impossible to work in worstation or laptop.

[Basile Starynkevitch]

Then I believe that R is not for this.... Supercomputers are costly enough (w.r.t. to qualified human labor cost) to be programmed in efficient compiled languages (e.g. C++, Fortran, OpenCL, perhaps Ocaml or Go or Common Lisp or Scala....). So use R for prototyping only (or for pre- or post- processing, which could run on a desktop), especially if you need huge computational power.

[Kryo]

@jordanm..it worked,

[derobert]

@jordanm please post answers as answers (or, alternatively, if you think the question should be closed, vote to close).

[X.X]

Great advice. On the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, I can't find xorg-x11-server-devel using the sudo yum list xorg-x11-server-devel command. But using a wildcard search sudo yum list xorg-x11-*, I found a similar one named xorg-x11-drv-evdev-devel. With that the ./configure command no longer complains about X11 anymore.