Hello:
I'm running R 2.7.1 in Antix (Mepis kernel but heavily debian based). I have installed libcairo2 (1.6.4-6.1). I tried installing the Cairo package since I'm interested in generating some SVG graphs, and I got the following message:
Only partial output (lines with no):
....
checking if R was compiled with the RConn patch... no
checking cairo.h usability... yes
checking cairo.h presence... yes
checking for cairo.h... yes
checking for PNG support in Cairo... yes
checking for ATS font support in Cairo... no
....
checking whether cairo_image_surface_get_format is declared... no
checking for FreeType support in cairo... yes
checking whether FreeType needs additional flags... no
checking wheter libjpeg works... yes
checking wheter libtiff works... no
configure: creating ./config.status
...
xlib-backend.c:34:74: error: X11/Intrinsic.h: No such file or directory
xlib-backend.c: In function 'Rcairo_init_xlib':
xlib-backend.c:158: warning: implicit declaration of function 'XrmUniqueQuark'
make: *** [xlib-backend.o] Error 1
chmod: cannot access `/usr/local/lib/R/site-library/Cairo/libs/*': No such file or directory
ERROR: compilation failed for package 'Cairo'
** Removing '/usr/local/lib/R/site-library/Cairo'
I hope I provided enough of the output (and enough system information). I don't know what the "Rconn patch" is and perhaps that is the problem?