installing R on Ubuntu
znmeb wrote:
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 4:51 AM, Neil Shephard <nshephard at gmail.com> wrote:
There are pro's and con's to each of the GNU/Linux flavours and its really a matter of deciding which you like/have invested time in learning. Irrespective its still simple to install R from source under GNU/Linux... 1) Download source tar-ball 2) Extract and cd to the directory 3) ./configure --prefix=/where/you/want/R/to/go (optionally setting the install path at this stage) 4) ./make 5) ./make install ...all documented in the FAQ at http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#How-can-R-be-installed-_0028Unix_0029
Many Linux distros do *not* install the development tools by default, and which ones live in which packages varies by distro. Fedora in particular is extremely stripped when you install from the LiveCD. You have to install gcc, make and a couple of other things just to install VMware Tools, for example, when running Fedora as a VMware guest. For building R from source and installing R packages, you'll also need to install gfortran. And many libraries with external dependencies, like Rgraphviz, will require not only the package itself (graphviz) but also the C headers, which may have the name "graphviz-devel" on some distros and some other name on other distros.
What, a Linux distro that *doesn't* come with gcc!! I have to say I'm quite amazed at that!! gfortran is usually a component of gcc, no? I agree that ensuring libraries are available for all of the packages can be tricky, but its not insurmountable (although its one of the reasons I left Slackware in favour of Gentoo), but its no different to learning the vagaries of M$-windows. Its a common misconception I see frequently that "computers/software should just work", and thats really not the case. They do what they are told to, and the person using them often needs to understand them in a bit of detail, and this detail is often occluded under Windows so when people try to make the transition from to GNU/Linux they are initially over-whelmed. Anyway, all OT. Neil
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