Error message installing Cairo package in R

Question

I want to install the Cairo package in R using:

install.packages("Cairo")

Unfortunately this doesn't work. The error message is following:

xlib-backend.c:34:74: fatal error: X11/Intrinsic.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [xlib-backend.o] Error 1
ERROR: compilation failed for package ‘Cairo’
* removing ‘/home/magnus/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.1/Cairo’

Does anybody have an answer for this problem? I couldn't find any help in the internet so far.

Many thanks in advance!

Yours,

broesel

Answer 1

For me (Ubuntu 15.04) installing libxt-dev solved the problem.

(I know it's mentioned in comments above, but thought it might be good to have it in answers as well)

Answer 2

You need the development header as the file Intrinsic.h is not found.

For the related package cairoDevice (which I maintain for Debian), I ensure the following is installed:

libgtk2.0-dev, libcairo2-dev, xvfb, xauth, xfonts-base

If you are on a different distribution these might be called something else. The key is that the Gtk and Cairo header packages also pull in other, needed, x11 packages.

Answer 3

libXt-devel needs to be installed in Fedora (25):

sudo dnf install libXt-devel