Re: [PATCH] gnu: r: Add pango to inputs.

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi Guix,
>
> our R package is currently built with Cairo, which allows R to use the Cairo
> rendering backend.  When R starts up and loads grDevices, however, it checks
> for the availability of Pango, not Cairo.  So even though the Cairo backend
> works just fine, R falls back to using the primitive Xlib backend.
>
> You can confirm this by running this in R:
>
>     getOption('bitmapType')
>     options(bitmapType='cairo')
>
> The first command should show you "Xlib" with R from Guix.  The second sets
> the backend to Cairo, which works without problems.
>
> I decided against patching the detection mechanism in R because I don't know
> if R might use Pango features elsewhere.  Instead I opted to add Pango to the
> inputs.  Pango pulls in Cairo, so the package closure is a little bigger than
> before.  Pango makes up 0.7% of the total size, so I think that's okay.
>
> ~~ Ricardo

I also just stumbled upon an old message to the mailing list, which I
had completely forgotten about:

   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2015-09/msg00279.html

This is the very same problem and it is solved by giving R what it
wants: Pango.

~~ Ricardo