installing R on Ubuntu
At 07:58 09/02/2009, Thomas Lumley wrote:
On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, Tom Backer Johnsen wrote:
Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
On 8 February 2009 at 20:36, Tom Backer Johnsen wrote: | Dear me. Is the installation of R under Ubuntu really that complex? I | have a dual boot machine (Linux / Windows, where I use the latter the | most) and have plans to try R under Linux, but have not done so yet. Is | it possible to simplify the Linux install procedure to make R more | accessible to novices? Yes. 'sudo apt-get install r-base ess ggobi' and you have working R, ESS and Ggobi. Start Emacs, type 'M-x R' and you have an R session inside Emacs. Is that really easier to accomplish in Windows?
No. If it is that simple to install R under a Debian vaiant of Linux, it definitely is easier. On the other hand, using Emacs is not (as far as I know) the thing for novices. What I would prefer is something that is as simple to use as the Windows (or even better, the Mac interface) for R.
Tom, For what it is worth 1 - as a long term Windows user and complete Linux novice I found the process on Linux (using the Debian pages at CRAN and the r-sig-debian help list as an instruction set) fairly straightforward. Some things are easier, some harder. 2 - if all you want is a simple editor with syntax highlighting and the ability to pipe commands to the running R then you could consider Kate which you may already have. It is of course also much more powerful than that but you can effortlessly ignore the powerful bits. Plus Kate is a cute name.
You might like JGR, then. http://jgr.markushelbig.org/JGR.html -thomas Thomas Lumley Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics tlumley at u.washington.edu University of Washington, Seattle
Michael Dewey http://www.aghmed.fsnet.co.uk