Cantor is missing possibility to add R backend

[Hmpf]

Binary package hint: kdeedu

"Cantor is an application that lets you use your favorite mathematical applications from within a nice KDE-integrated worksheet interface. It offers assistant dialogs for common tasks and allows sharing of worksheets with others. Available backends are Sage, Maxima, R, and KAlgebra."

This backends can be selected in the Cantor settings, however the R backend does not show up there. The R backend is also missing when r-recommended is installed. Maxima and Sage show up, even when they are not installed (which is good, e.g. you might have installed them in /opt).

On a further note the packages sagemath and maxima are both suggested by the package cantor, R is not. I am not sure if this are two different issues or not.

This is under Karmic KDE SC 4.4.0 with kubuntu-ppa-backports, but Lucid's cantor is missing R as suggestion as well. Cantor Version 0.1 from package cantor 4:4.4.0-0ubuntu1~karmic1~ppa1

[Andy Choens (andy-choens)]

Installed Cantor on Alpha3 and I agree that it does not appear to be possible to setup the R backend (perhaps it was compiled without it?). R is installed via the Ubuntu repository, not the custom r-cran repository. I have used R on this system and it appears to operate as I would expect but I am only able to set up Cantor with worksheets for KAlgebra. I don't have sage or maxima installed so while I can see the options in the User Interface, I don't know if they work.

[Andy Choens (andy-choens)]

I asked on #kde-edu and learned that cantor_rbacked.so would be present if Cantor was compiled with R support. This file is definitely not on my system. Based on this fact, I was advised that the problem was with the compilation.

[Daniele E. Domenichelli (daniele.domenichelli)]

I can confirm this.
This patch adds r-base-dev to build dependencies, that means that "cantor_rbackend.so" is built and installed.
It also installs rbackend.desktop and adds r-base to cantor suggests

[Daniele E. Domenichelli (daniele.domenichelli)]

Sorry, /usr/bin/cantor_rserver was also missing.
This time the patch should work.

[Rich Johnson (nixternal)]

This will not fix it because R is in Universe and Cantor is in Main. Packages in Main cannot depend on packages in Universe. I have filed an MIR for r-base but we need commitment from the r-base maintainer. If he can't commit, then the Kubuntu team needs to possibly look after it. r-base is a huge and very confusing package.

[Rich Johnson (nixternal)]

Until the r-base MIR has been approved and pushed into Main, there is nothing we can do. As it stands, it doesn't look like it is going to happen for Lucid unfortunately.

[José Tomás Atria (jtatria)]

so, disregarding ubuntu bureaucracy, what do we, as kubuntu users, have to do now to get cantor working with R?

[Daniele E. Domenichelli (daniele.domenichelli)]

I built kdeedu packages with for karmic and lucid with R support on my ppa,
https://launchpad.net/~daniele.domenichelli/+archive/ppa
Until r-base is in universe, to get cantor working with R you can add my ppa to your software sources or just download and install cantor package.

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

Rich, did you file a MIR already?

[Philip Muškovac (yofel)]

Unsubscribing reviewers as there's nothing to do until the MIR is done.

[Andreas J Guelzow (aguelzow)]

What happened to this? Is there a way to use R with cantor in Natty?

[Andreas J Guelzow (aguelzow)]

Unfortunately I can't even install from Danielle's repository:
W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/daniele.domenichelli/ppa/ubuntu/dists/natty/main/source/Sources 404 Not Found

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/daniele.domenichelli/ppa/ubuntu/dists/natty/main/binary-i386/Packages 404 Not Found

[Philip Muškovac (yofel)]

I'll poke Richard abut this, as for now: Either find a new PPA, or you could try to use the unstable cantor builds from Project Neon. (Add ppa:neon/ppa and install project-neon-cantor, it'll be installed in /opt/project-neon/bin/cantor). We build with R enabled, but since we give no guarantee that it'll work it's not a permanent solution.

The MIR was/is bug 497158 btw.
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[Jose Manuel Santamaria Lema (panfaust)]

Today cantor is un universe, so I think this problem doesn't exist anymore, feel free to reopen if I'm wrong.