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Which Linux OS on Athlon amd64, to comfortably run R?

2 messages · Tony Plate, Dirk Eddelbuettel

Original
Tony Plate
# 
[moved from R-help]
Kevin Middleton wrote:
>>> One oddity about Ubuntu is that there are no CRAN builds for 64bit.
 >> Volunteers would be welcomed with open arms.
 >>
 >
 > I don't think I know enough to volunteer (but I am open to suggestion
 > off list), but I had no difficulty installing R from source on a 64
 > bit Ubuntu machine (7.10, with, I believe, 1 GB of RAM) following the
 > instructions in R-admin. I just kept installing necessary libraries
 > until ./configure completed without errors. Then make, make check,
 > and make install ran without a hitch.
 >

I also initially compiled R from a source tarball under Ubuntu by adding 
Ubuntu packages by trial and error until ./configure completed without errors.

After some helpful tips from Dirk Eddelbuettal, I tried the following on a 
new installation of Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get build-dep r-base r-recommended

which installs all the listed dependencies for r-base and r-recommended. 
That seemed to work well for finding the dependencies necessary to compile 
R. (And if this is wrong, it's my fault, not Dirk's.)

Question: Is this the easiest recommended way to install all the 
dependencies necessary to build the latest version of R from sources under 
Ubuntu?

Other: possible sources of info:

(1) There are instructions in http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/ 
(and links from there) but those seem to be more directed at building R 
packages than R itself.

(2) There are also some notes on the Wiki at 
http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=getting-started:installation:debian#build_r 
but those suggest installing specific Debian/Ubuntu packages, rather than 
using the dependencies specified in the package descriptions.

(3) There is also a script in the message archived at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/r-sig-debian at r-project.org/msg00215.html , but 
I'm hoping the above single-line can accomplish what's needed to just build 
R from sources.

-- Tony Plate
Dirk Eddelbuettel
#
On 11 December 2007 at 11:24, Tony Plate wrote:
| I also initially compiled R from a source tarball under Ubuntu by adding 
| Ubuntu packages by trial and error until ./configure completed without errors.
| 
| After some helpful tips from Dirk Eddelbuettal, I tried the following on a 
| new installation of Ubuntu:
| 
| $ sudo apt-get build-dep r-base r-recommended
| 
| which installs all the listed dependencies for r-base and r-recommended. 
| That seemed to work well for finding the dependencies necessary to compile 
| R. (And if this is wrong, it's my fault, not Dirk's.)
| 
| Question: Is this the easiest recommended way to install all the 
| dependencies necessary to build the latest version of R from sources under 
| Ubuntu?

If you build the R _Debian_ package from source (which is not that hard, and
worth it for as 'lab' or lan installation), all dependencies are taken care of via
the Build-Depends field of debian/control.  We just discussed this in the
off-line thread started by Kevin's (and the also Roland's) offer to help with
amd64 packages.  As Johannes reminded us,
	$ sudo apt-get build-dep r-base
gets you all that installed.

Are you asking to build new R binaries for /usr/local, say from r-devel, or
this is a metaphysical question?    If you don't build any CRAN packages,
then r-recommended (ie its component packages boot, MASS, lattice, ...)
should not be needed.  Otherwise, there may be subtle issues as the separate
build of these packages is a Debian-ism that R Core doesn't officially
condones :)

Hth, Dirk


| Other: possible sources of info:
| 
| (1) There are instructions in http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/ 
| (and links from there) but those seem to be more directed at building R 
| packages than R itself.
| 
| (2) There are also some notes on the Wiki at 
| http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=getting-started:installation:debian#build_r 
| but those suggest installing specific Debian/Ubuntu packages, rather than 
| using the dependencies specified in the package descriptions.
| 
| (3) There is also a script in the message archived at 
| http://www.mail-archive.com/r-sig-debian at r-project.org/msg00215.html , but 
| I'm hoping the above single-line can accomplish what's needed to just build 
| R from sources.
| 
| -- Tony Plate
| 
| 
| > Kevin
| > 
| > -------------------------------------------------
| > Kevin M. Middleton
| > Department of Biology
| > California State University San Bernardino
| > 5500 University Parkway
| > San Bernardino CA 92507
| > 
| > ______________________________________________
| > R-help at r-project.org mailing list
| > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
| > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
| > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
| >
| 
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