Compilation of R packages

| > Le Mercredi 5 Juillet 2006 09:41, Dirk Eddelbuettel a ?crit?:
| > > Salut Vincent,
| > >

| > > | I'm currently following your procedure suggested on R-SIG-Debian
| > > | (https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-debian/2006-June/000095.html) to
| > > | compile and install the latest version of R on Kubuntu. It is my
| > > | understanding that I can't just use Debian unstable's binary packages
| > > | (which is too bad).
| > >
| > > It may be worth trying. Debian unstable may well be ahead in terms of
| > > certain libraries but you can try.
| > 
| > Just tried installing r-base from Debian unstable. It requires updating libc6 
| > (from 2.3.6-0ubuntu20 to 2.3.6-15). I cancelled the operation in fear of 
| > wrecking my newly installed system havoc.
| 
| Did you try to install the sarge backport packages? Those do not require
| updated libc6 packages, so perhaps they work on ubuntu?

Good point. I think they definitely worked for Ubuntu 05.10 (== Oct 2005)
and it may indeed work on Ubuntu 06.06.
 
| > This is exactly what I did (except the modifications to debian/control) and 
| > triggered my question. Building r-base builds r-recommended, but not the 
| > r-cran-* packages r-recommended depends on. Then it seems that building of 
| > the r-cran-* packages must be done in a specific order.
| [...]
| > As (K)Ubuntu seem to become increasingly popular flavours of Debian, it would 
| > certainly be worth adding a note. Or perhaps someone might be interested to 
| > maintain up-to-date Ubuntu packages of R?
| 
| I did not see the question/problem? 
| 
| > Look, 
| > 
| > 1) I have no experience whatsoever in maintaining Debian/Ubuntu packages;
| > 2) I do not know exactly how more recent versions of packages are distributed 
| > for Ubuntu;
| > 
| > however, if nobody else with more experience than I is interested to maintain 
| > such packages, I might try to do my part. I'll just need a mentor. ;-)
| 
| I don't have an Ubuntu box, as I do not use Ubuntu at all. I guess I might
| find the space to setup an ubuntu chroot, but that would require some more
| convincing and time (so definetely not before sunday)!
| 
| I think the sarge backported packages should be installable on ubuntu
| systems, and if not, you could simply use the sources I prepared for the
| backports and try building with them on Ubuntu. That's exactly what I would
| do if I had an Ubunto chroot.
| Get the source from your favourite CRAN mirror or directly from my debian
| page, this should work in /etc/apt/sources.list
| deb-src http://people.debian.org/~cts/debian stable/
| 
| apt-get source r-base, install the build-depends, and build the package
| (dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot or debuild). As Dirk said, I changed the
| r-recommended package to include all r-cran-* packages to make the
| maintenance of the backport easier for me. Actually, Dirk suggested this
| when I started the backport. This is a little tricky for upgrading since
| r-cran-* packages are only overwritten but not removed, but I think we
| solved most problems there (just an installation problem, no problems with
| running the packages). If you run into those problems, the cleanest way is
| to remove the currently installed r-recommended (and with it r-base), and then
| install the packages from the backport.

We're certainly getting better at this over time :)

Dirk

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