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Building a custom Windows installer

3 messages · Brian Ripley, John Fox

Original
John Fox
# 
Dear r-devel list members,

It's been several years since I last built a custom Windows installer for R,
and despite my notes and the instructions in Sections 3.1.7 and D.4 of the R
Installation and Administration Manual, I've run into a problem, receiving
the following error message:

----------- snip -----------

C:\R\src\R-2.11.1\src\gnuwin32\installer>make myR IMAGEDIR=c:/temp/R-2.11.1
MDISDI=1
Makefile:3: ../MkRules: No such file or directory
make: ../fixed/rwver.pl: Command not found
make: ../fixed/rwver.pl: Command not found
make: ../fixed/rwver.pl: Command not found
make: ../fixed/rwver.pl: Command not found
make: *** No rule to make target `../MkRules'.  Stop.

----------- snip -----------

My path looks like this:

----------- snip -----------

C:\R\src\R-2.11.1\src\gnuwin32\installer>set path
Path=c:\Rtools\bin;c:\Rtools\perl\bin;c:\Rtools\MinGW\bin;C:\Program
Files\Commo
n Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\GTK\bin;C:\Program
Files\Insightful\spl
us80\;C:\Program Files\ActiveState Komodo Edit
4\;.;c:\R\R-2.11.1\bin;C:\progra~
1\miktex~1.7\miktex\bin;c:\progra~1\htmlhe~1;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;
C:\W
indows\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Roxio
Shared\DLLShared\;C:\Pr
ogram Files\GnuWin32\bin;C:\Program Files\CollabNet Subversion;C:\Program
Files\
MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\bin;C:\Program Files\SAS\Shared
Files\Formats;C:\Program
Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program
Fil
es\Smart Projects\IsoBuster;C:\Program Files\MiKTeX
2.7\miktex\bin\;C:\Program F
iles\QuickTime\QTSystem\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft
Shared\Windows
Live;C:\Program Files\SSH Communications Security\SSH Secure
Shell;C:\Program Fi
les\Bibtex2html;C:\Graphviz2.20\bin
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC

----------- snip -----------

The directory c:/temp/R-2.11.1 contains a complete customized installation
of R, while C:\R\src\R-2.11.1 contains the unpacked R sources. This is on a
Windows Vista system. I've updated Rtools to version 2.11.  I can supply
more information, but I'm not sure what's relevant. 

I don't think that I should have to place a MkRules file in the gnuwin32
directory, but I tried copying each the MkRules.dist and MkRules.rules files
there in turn to MkRules. Neither worked; I apparently got farther copying
MkRules.rules to MkRules, but eventually got another error:

----------- snip -----------

C:\R\src\R-2.11.1\src\gnuwin32\installer>make myR IMAGEDIR=c:/temp/R-2.11.1
MDISDI=1
echo "make.packages.html(.Library)" | c:/temp/R-2.11.1/bin/rterm --vanilla
--sla
ve LC_COLLATE=C
Making packages.html ... done
adding MD5 checksums
perl JRins.pl R-2.11.1 c:/temp/R-2.11.1 1 1 0 R-core
"/iscc" R.iss > myR.log
/iscc: not found
make: *** [myR] Error 127 

----------- snip -----------

Any help would be appreciated.

John

--------------------------------
John Fox
Senator William McMaster 
  Professor of Social Statistics
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox
Brian Ripley
# 
John,

It is not clear to me what you actually did (and I am also assuming 
this is 32-bit R), but I surmise that you did not build R in your 
source directory.  One of the first steps in doing so is to make 
src/gnuwin32/MkRules. (You are also likely to need to customize the 
file, possibly via a MkRules.local, to set ISDIR.)

I've done a quick check, and in R 2.11.x AFAICS all that is needed is

cd R_SOURCES/src/gnuwin32
make MkRules
cd installer
make myR IMAGEDIR=e:/temp/R-2.11.1 MDISDI=1

However, in 2.12.0 you will need to make R completely in the sources, 
as R is used for scripting.

Brian
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010, John Fox wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      John Fox
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
Dear Brian,

            

      
      
      
    

        
Yes, that's right. It wasn't clear to me from the manual that it was
necessary to build R (or as it turns out, just MkRules) when using IMAGEDIR.
I guess that this has changed since I last built a custom installer, or my
notes were incomplete.

            

      
      
      
    

        
Not necessary in my case, since Inno Setup is in the default location.

            

      
      
      
    

        
Yes, this works fine for me as well.

Thank you very much.

John

            

      
      
      
    

        
for

            

      
      
      
    

        
the

            

      
      
      
    

        
receiving

            

      
      
      
    

        
IMAGEDIR=c:/temp/R-2.11.1

            

      
      
      
    

        
1\miktex~1.7\miktex\bin;c:\progra~1\htmlhe~1;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;

            

      
      
      
    

        
Subversion;C:\Program

            

      
      
      
    

        
Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program

            

      
      
      
    

        
installation

            

      
      
      
    

        
on a

            

      
      
      
    

        
copying

            

      
      
      
    

        
IMAGEDIR=c:/temp/R-2.11.1

            

      
      
      
    

        
--vanilla