[Rd] R, Wine, and multi-threadedness.

[Hin-Tak Leung]

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
<snipped>
>> Now, the interesting questions are: (1) is Atlas multi-threaded on 
>> *every* platform, or more specifically, on Windows?,
> 
> 
> By default it is not multi-threaded on any platform, and we have not 
> succeeded in compiling a multi-threaded version on Windows except by 
> using Cygwin extensions (i.e. not actually on Windows).

Thanks for the explanations. As I said, my main interests in running
R under Wine is mostly about having a GUI, but the multi-threading 
possibility is an interesting discussion; also re-compiling
the whole lot (either for win32 or linux) just for the *possibility* of 
speeding up is a bit painful, so having drop-in dll replacement
(or a shared-library replacement) for trying-out sounds rather attractive.

>> (2) Can wine use the atlas dll under x86 linux?
> 
> `the atlas dll' being?  The ATLAS-based Rblas.dlls on CRAN are not 
> multithreaded.  Who knows what wine can do?

Thanks for stating that. It wasn't clear that the Atlas-based Rblas is
not multi-threaded.

> Please be more reasonable in your support requests.  Yours is a rather 
> unusual use, and we don't have time to support it.

Thanks for the detailed explanations about threading implementations.
that's what I was after. Most of what I said is throwing ideas about, 
really.

As for the issue with msvcp60.dll, I am really sorry about it
- but since one of you had bothered enough to write an FAQ item for
it, I cannot be the first one getting bitten? It would be a good deal
more useful to separate that option from the other harmless ones in the 
Innosetup installer, and/or shouldn't be too much effort to say, put
it last instead or somehow mark it out differently or even add a note at 
the same screen instead? e.g. "**The Far East support options requires 
that you have Far East support in Windows**" (there are win32 software 
which can do CJK without OS support; e.g. some version of Acrobat
reader is known to run under Wine, and I would expect it doesn't
need extra windows bits to view CJK pdf's)...the misleading part
was that the other additional options are absolutely harmless.

Thanks a lot for the discussion. If I find any interesting R issues
under Wine, I'll report back.

Hin-Tak Leung