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Cross-compilers versus windows compilers (was optimal win dows R machine)

On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, Paul Hewson wrote:

            
If you don't need Compiled HTML help (and my guess is that you don't) then
almost all packages can be cross-compiled.  (Of course, almost all the
public ones are already available in compiled form: many thanks to
Phillipe Grosjean for updates while I am travelling etc.)

Setting up a cross-compiler can be at least as frustrating as setting up a
native one.  I am offering one on the Rtools portal that works for me, but
is a little out-of-date.  There are others out there, but they mostly lack
Fortran.

I would try the cross-compiling route for now, but would warn that as we
move to using R itself for parts of the build procedure, cross-compiling
may become less viable.  Indeed, I managed to break it in R-devel for
a week or so recently.


PS on the original topic about VMware: my comments were principally about
speed running R for Windows under VMware.  It is probable that R is a
particularly bad fit, as its memory manager is already trying to make
Windows memomry management work like the Unix equivalent, and memory
management is crucial to R's performance.