This question was asked previously here, but not resolved: http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/e15/devel/11/08/0307.html
The upshot is that cairo is not being used as the default when it is available, even though the documentation says: Default "cairo" where available and reliable, otherwise "Xlib". Here is my system information: % uname -a Linux anvil 2.6.18-194.11.4.el5 #1 SMP Fri Sep 17 04:57:05 EDT 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux > R.version _ platform x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu arch x86_64 os linux-gnu system x86_64, linux-gnu status major 3 minor 0.0 year 2013 month 04 day 03 svn rev 62481 language R version.string R version 3.0.0 (2013-04-03) nickname Masked Marvel > capabilities("X11");capabilities("cairo");options("bitmapType") X11 TRUE cairo TRUE $bitmapType [1] "Xlib" It is clear whether cairo or X11 is being used because cairo does antialiasing, and X11 does not: plot(read.table("in.txt")); Whether cairo is the default is decided in src/library/grDevices/R/zzz.R in the onLoad function: list(bitmapType = if(capabilities("aqua")) "quartz" else if(.Call(C_cairoProps, 2L)) "cairo" else "Xlib") and if (.Platform$OS.type != "windows" && !.Call(C_cairoProps, 2L)) X11.options(type = "Xlib") cairoProps is in src/library/grDevices/src/init.c: static SEXP cairoProps(SEXP in) { int which = asInteger(in); if(which == 1) return ScalarLogical( #ifdef HAVE_WORKING_CAIRO 1 #else 0 #endif ); else if(which == 2) return ScalarLogical( #ifdef HAVE_PANGOCAIRO 1 #else 0 #endif ); return R_NilValue; } I believe this is where the problem comes in. I don't have pangocairo and cairoProps is being called with 2L instead of 1L. Indeed, if I change it to 1L and recompile, cairo becomes the default, and everything runs as expected. I would like cairo to be checked for rather than pangocairo, but perhaps there is a good reason how it is being done now. Can this be changed? thanks, michael -- michael.b...@acm.org ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel