Deb-4.0 Etch and sources.list for R

Hi Folks,
I'm running Debian-4.0 Etch, installed last September
from a DVD, and regularly updated as things arise.

I have R version 2.4.0 Patched (2006-11-25 r39997)
installed (initially at the time of first installation
of Debian, as provided by Debian), along with a variety
of packages.

I'd like to be able to connect to the CRAN repositories
for Debian R, for updates etc.

When I visit

  http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/

I read:

  As a courtesy to the R users on the Debian "stable"
  platforms, the "stable" directory on CRAN contains
  so-called 'backports' of the current R binaries for
  the "stable" distribution of Debian. Simply add
  something like

  deb http://<favorite-cran-mirror>/bin/linux/debian stable/

  to the file /etc/apt/sources.list on your computer and
  install as usual. We currently provide binaries for the
  i386 and amd64 architectures.

Well, I put the following into /etc/apt/sources.list:

  deb http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/ stable/

(which looks sufficiently "something like" to me). BUT:

When I open the (graphical) Synaptic Package Manager up pops
a window with the message:

  An error occured
  The following details are provided:

  W: Couldn't stat source package list
  http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk stable/ Packages

(/var/lib/apt/lists/www.stats.bris.ac.uk_R_bin_linux_debian_
stable_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
[all one line]

However, I find there precisely is a directory:

http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/stable/Packages

so I'm puzzled!

Grateful for any help (and only beginning to get used to
Debian, not having used it since its flaky transition to 1.0
sometime during 1998! Been on Red Hat and SuSE since; now trying
Debian again and, mostly, getting along fine).

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 27-Apr-08                                       Time: 23:41:24
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