I've installed R3.0 on my Mountain Lion Mac and after some trial and error the version of GTK suggested by http://r.research.att.com/ for R3.0: GTK+ 2.24.17 framework.
I load the package into R3.0 and run one of the demo. I see (for an instant) that a graph is generated, but immediately R crashes. Typically the crash takes place when I run the line "win$showAll()" (CairoDevice work no problem). This is the beginning of the error log generated (with the details of my configuration). Thanks!
Process: R [2307]
Path: /Applications/R.app/Contents/MacOS/R
Identifier: org.R-project.R
Version: R 3.0.0 GUI 1.60 Snow Leopard build (6476)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [231]
User ID: 501
Date/Time: 2013-04-07 23:54:11.976 +0100
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.8.3 (12D78)
Report Version: 10
Interval Since Last Report: 11186 sec
Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 1133 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 11
Anonymous UUID: 2C9EB7F4-E0B7-FDC4-7300-075C23CD86BB
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Application Specific Information:
Assertion failed: (_cairo_status_is_error (status)), function _cairo_error, file cairo-error.c, line 68.
Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff8afbd212 __pthread_kill + 10
1 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff867ccb54 pthread_kill + 90
2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff86810dce abort + 143
3 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff86811e2a __assert_rtn + 146
4 libcairo.2.dylib 0x000000010d383cdc _cairo_error + 48
5 libcairo.2.dylib 0x000000010d37c6f7 _cairo_set_error + 19
6 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010eca326a gtk_default_draw_focus + 554
7 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010ec63dfc gtk_range_expose + 1644
8 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010ec7e2b8 gtk_scale_expose + 120
9 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010ec22e79 _gtk_marshal_BOOLEAN__BOXED + 169
10 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x0000000109642455 g_closure_invoke + 245
11 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x00000001096524c8 signal_emit_unlocked_R + 2216
12 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x0000000109653528 g_signal_emit_valist + 3336
13 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x0000000109653a64 g_signal_emit + 116
14 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010ed38bd8 gtk_widget_event_internal + 664
15 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010eba0fc1 gtk_container_propagate_expose + 369
16 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010eb72e06 gtk_box_forall + 54
17 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010eba3936 gtk_container_expose + 150
18 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010ec22e79 _gtk_marshal_BOOLEAN__BOXED + 169
19 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x0000000109642455 g_closure_invoke + 245
20 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x00000001096524c8 signal_emit_unlocked_R + 2216
21 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x0000000109653528 g_signal_emit_valist + 3336
22 libgobject-2.0.0.dylib 0x0000000109653a64 g_signal_emit + 116
23 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010ed38bd8 gtk_widget_event_internal + 664
24 libgtk-x11-2.0.0.dylib 0x000000010eba0fc1 gtk_container_propagate_expose
I want to thank all the people that contributed to a solution of this problem. Eventually I managed to fix it, after numerous trials (and late nights!). The basic methods that have been proposed are:
install GTk+ and cairo with homebrew
install GTk2 and cairo with macports
I never managed to make this work with macports, but eventually I've been successful with homebrew, after many fruitless attempts. I cleaned up my PATH that was getting a bit messy. Then I basically uninstalled X11, GTk+, cairo and all their dependencies.
I've first installed XQuartz-2.7.4.
For the installation of all the needed components I've followed the instructions found here and installed yarp using homebrew and the associated instructions. Most people may found this bizarre (I did), but installing yarp installed sequentially all the needed dependencies to make GTk+ work (obviously I tried just to install GTk+ and cairo but it never worked or eventually RGTk2 failed to compile).
I then installed (using R CMD INSTALL) GTk2, Cairo, cairoDevice and rattle from sources. After so many months trying to fix the problem I couldn't believe that everything worked!
Thanks again to all those that contributed with their effort and their research to fix the problem.
Enzo