install.packages on unix / su (PR#8760)

| Full_Name: Thomas Friedrichsmeier
| Version: R 2.2.1
| OS: Debian / Linux
| Submission from: (NULL) (84.60.123.243)
| 
| 
| Wishlist item:
| 
| There is a small problem using intall.packages() (and update.packages()):
| Typically I want to install packages for system-wide use, not in a user
| directory. Obviously this does not work without superuser rights.

One can see this problem as a local system management issue for which another
possible answer is to add you (and/or the user users installing R packages)
to, say, group 'admin' and to make /usr/local/lib/R of group admin and
group-writeable.  Or create a custom group radmin. Or ...

Dirk

| What I would like to be able to do is to specify a "become root" command to use
| in install.packages (). Probably this would be done using an extra argument to
| install.packages () and update.packages ():
| 
| install.packages ([...], install.wrapper=NULL)
| 
| The argument value I would typically want to supply on my system (running in a
| KDE Session) would be: install.wrapper="kdesu --" . I.e. I would like to run the
| R CMD INSTALL command through kdesu.
| 
| Technically it would basically function like this:
| 
| Instead of
| 
| cmd0 <- paste(file.path(R.home("bin"),"R"), "CMD INSTALL")
| 
| in install.packages (), it would read
| 
| cmd0 <- paste(install.wrapper, file.path(R.home("bin"),"R"), "CMD INSTALL")
| 
| This feature would save me a lot of small hazzles.
| 
| ______________________________________________
| R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
| https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. 
                                                  -- Thomas A. Edison

| Wishlist item:
|
| There is a small problem using intall.packages() (and update.packages()):
| Typically I want to install packages for system-wide use, not in a user
| directory. Obviously this does not work without superuser rights.

One can see this problem as a local system management issue for which
another possible answer is to add you (and/or the user users installing R
packages) to, say, group 'admin' and to make /usr/local/lib/R of group
admin and group-writeable.  Or create a custom group radmin. Or ...

It's about convenience, no more, no less, and so it's a wishlist item, no 
more, and no less.
I don't think the case of a non-root user working on a de-facto single user 
system is too uncommon on linux. It's why tools like kdesu exist in the first 
place. Unless there are strong reasons not to (and there may well be), I 
think adding some convenience option for this particular case may well be 
worth while.

Regards
Thomas


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