build dependencies was Re: [R] problem with rgl package

I do that by setting the group mode of /usr/local/lib/R/site-library to, say,
'staff' and 'group-write mode' (numeric 0775). ?I also share that
/usr/local/lib/R tree over NFS at work across a few machines.

As an aside, this point is orthogonal to the OP having problems compiling
something by hand that exists pre-compiled.

| 2) the list of supported packages in Synaptic is long enough to be
| *too long* to remember, but short enough that it doesn't have many of
| the packages I regularly use. ?Rather than try to keep track of CRAN
| vs Synaptic, it is easier to just use CRAN and forget about it.

Synaptic is just one of many interfaces to the packaging system. At the end
of the day, both 20,000 Debian packages and 1,700 CRAN packages are hard to
search nomatter what you do.

Debian has several front-end, a system called 'tags' and intelligent
searching. ?I personally still mostly do 'apt-cache search foo' and some
grepping. ?Also, my personal favourite is 'wajig' which calles out to dpkg,
apt-get, aptitude, ... as needed and provides a single interface.

Good point! ?Patches welcome. Vincent and Michael read this list too so maybe
that is something we can take off-list for some constructive work?

| Under ?"ADMINISTRATION AND MAINTENANCE OF R PACKAGES", how about something like:
|
| "Installing R packages not provided with Ubuntu first requires tools
| to compile the packages from source. *For the majority of R packages
| these* tools may be installed via the R development package with
|
| ? ?sudo apt-get install r-base-dev
|
| Please note, however, that some packages may require tools not
| contained in r-base-dev, and the user must find and install these on
| an individual basis. ?But in the case that R package 'foo' is
| supported (with an Ubuntu package r-cran-foo), then the following will
| identify and install such dependencies:
|
| ? sudo apt-get build-dep r-cran-foo"

Not bad, but if 'apt-get install r-cran-foo' works, why do we need to explain
how to re-compile it ?

| and not the other way around. ?For people like me, this would be
| great.

Generally speaking, there are too many little tips and tricks so there is
always scope to do better, learn more, teach more, ...