R SIG Debian - Jun 2010 - "Graphics history" in UNIX (text only)

Hello. First post, please excuse lack of experience.

I recently switched from MS-Win to Kubuntu and find it rather difficult 
to recover Cran-R ease of use.
The "Graphics history" facility available under Windows was, for me, 
extremely useful.
 >From Murrell's 2005 book (see citation below) I understand that no 
such facility is available under non-Windows systems.
In R-help archive, a 2000 comment from Ripley seems to confirm. (see below)
Questions:
- do I correctly understand that  "No <Graphics history> facility is 
available for Linux systems"?
- (if Yes above) Please, let me understand why??
Many thanks for sharing.
Sincerely, Roberto Scotti

------------------------
from: http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/RGraphics/chapter1.pdf
"1.3.2 Multiple pages of output"
"For a screen device, starting a new page involves clearing the window 
before
producing more output. On Windows there is a facility for returning to 
previous
screens of output (see the \History" menu, which is available when a
graphics window has focus), but on most screen devices, the output of 
previous
pages is lost."
------------------------

*Subject: *Re: [R] Activating Graphics History
*From: *Prof Brian D Ripley (/ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk/)
*Date: *Sat 29 Jan 2000 - 08:06:24 EST

    * *In reply to:* Jim Ianelli: "[R] Activating Graphics History
      <http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/00a/0196.html>

Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.05.10001282201420.18401-100000 at auk.stats>

On Fri, 28 Jan 2000, Jim Ianelli wrote:

/> I'm having trouble finding documentation on how /
/> to activate the "record graphics history" option via /
/> a command line (as opposed to having to use the menu). /
///.............../
/> But I can't find anything about setting the recording of plots /
/> without using the menu. /

Crucially, you did not say you were doing this on Windows, and it is only
available on the windows() device on Windows. I am not aware of any way to
do this.