Hi Mathieu,
thanks for your input. It reminds me how I got involved in the Debian
backports, as I thought the Debian README on CRAN needed an update...
At the moment I do not have the time to reorganize the README, so if you would
like to go ahead and implement your changes into a README.html, I wouldn't
mind. Otherwise I am willing to pick up your suggestions, but it will take me
some time to get around to do it.
From my work on R package vignettes I know that pandoc is able to generate
single html documents with linked TOC from markdown, which is more flexible
than the text2html stuff I am using at the moment (as well as Michael does).
But maybe you or someone else on this list knows another convenient way? Or it
could be written in HTML using div tags and a hand-crafted css...
Kind regards,
Johannes
Am Donnerstag, 26. Februar 2015, 15:49:58 schrieb Mathieu Basille:
After Johannes set up the CRAN repository for Jessie, I had quite some
trouble figuring out what any user should do to have a running and
up-to-date R in Debian (particularly Testing). Part of the problem is, I
think, the overwhelming documentation on the page "DEBIAN PACKAGES OF R
SOFTWARE" which is provided on CRAN at /bin/linux/debian. Some information
is also lacking in places.
So here are a few suggestions to try to arrange this page. The main one is
actually a reorganization of the whole page, which should make it easier
from a user perspective. Note that I think all information I added is
correct, but it might not be entirely accurate.
I think the page in itself would benefit largely from the inclusion of a
table of contents (with links to sections). With the page reorganized, that
would follow this:
INSTALLATION
ADMINISTRATION AND MAINTENANCE
PATHWAYS TO R PACKAGES
BACKPORTS ON CRAN
SUPPORTED PACKAGES
DEBIAN WHEEZY (STABLE)
DEBIAN JESSIE (TESTING)
DEBIAN SQUEEZE (OLD STABLE)
DEBIAN SID (UNSTABLE)
SECURE APT
SUPPORTED PLATFORMS
REPORTING PROBLEMS
BACKPORTING FOR DEBIAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I added at the bottom of this message a few modifications of some of these
(sub-)sections. The vast majority of the information is already there, so
these are really minor changes, except for the Jessie sub-section.
Hope this helps,
Mathieu.
==========================================================================
INSTALLATION
With an appropriate entry in /etc/apt/sources.list *(see below according to
the branch of Debian used)*, the newest R release *including recommended
packages* can be installed using a command sequence like
SUPPORTED PACKAGES
[Remove:] r-cran-rmatrix
DEBIAN JESSIE (TESTING)
As of end of January 2015, there is a new repository containing binaries
for Jessie (current testing). This repository hosts all supported packages
presented above, and is updated upon new R releases.
To use R supported packages on Debian Jessie, simply add something like
deb http://<favorite-cran-mirror>/bin/linux/debian jessie-cran3/
to the file /etc/apt/sources.list on your computer. You need to substitute
<favorite-cran-mirror> by one of the mirror URLs listed in
http://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html
Alternatively, it is possible to use APT-pining to install only R-related
packages from SID using Debian official repositories (/!\ Warning: should
be reserved to advanced users already familiar with pining their Debian
system). Simply add the supported packages (and other r-cran-* of interest)
in /etc/apt/preferences with a priority greater or equal than the priority
of regular testing packages:
Package: r-base r-base-core r-base-dev r-recommended r-cran-boot
r-cran-cluster r-cran-class r-cran-codetools r-cran-foreign
r-cran-kernsmooth r-cran-lattice r-cran-mass r-cran-matrix r-cran-mgcv
r-cran-nlme r-cran-nnet r-cran-rpart r-cran-spatial r-cran-survival littler
r-cran-rodbc python-rpy python-rpy2 rkward r-cran-jags r-cran-coda
Pin: release o=Debian,a=unstable,l=Debian
Pin-Priority: 900
DEBIAN SID (UNSTABLE)
The latest stable versions of R and R packages are readily available in
official Debian SID repositories.