Install RGL in Ubuntu
- October 14th, 2012
- Write comment
I had a few hurdles to get through when trying to install the “rgl” R package in Ubuntu. In summary, here was my solution:
From the terminal:
sudo apt-get install r-cran-dev xorg-dev libglu1-mesa-dev
Then from R:
install.packages("rgl")
Detailed Log
The first snag I hit was the following implying I was missing some necessary X code:
checking for X... no configure: error: X11 not found but required, configure aborted. ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘rgl’
You’ll need the `xorg-dev` package to get around this issue. I then hit an error regarding a `GL` library:
checking for X... libraries , headers checking GL/gl.h usability... no checking GL/gl.h presence... no checking for GL/gl.h... no checking GL/glu.h usability... no checking GL/glu.h presence... no checking for GL/glu.h... no configure: error: missing required header GL/gl.h ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘rgl’
A quick Google showed that the `libglu1-mesa-dev` package contained these headers. Once I had installed those package, the install process went smoothly!
Note, too, that there may be a precompiled package may be available for your distribution under the name r-cran-rgl. In my case, I needed a more recent version of the package than was offered there, hence this exploration.
