[Rd] install.packages on unix / su (PR#8760)

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 10 April 2006 at 21:14, thomas.friedrichsmeier at gmx.de wrote:
| Full_Name: Thomas Friedrichsmeier
| Version: R 2.2.1
| OS: Debian / Linux
| Submission from: (NULL) (84.60.123.243)
| 
| 
| Wishlist item:
| 
| There is a small problem using intall.packages() (and update.packages()):
| Typically I want to install packages for system-wide use, not in a user
| directory. Obviously this does not work without superuser rights.

One can see this problem as a local system management issue for which another
possible answer is to add you (and/or the user users installing R packages)
to, say, group 'admin' and to make /usr/local/lib/R of group admin and
group-writeable.  Or create a custom group radmin. Or ...

Dirk

| What I would like to be able to do is to specify a "become root" command to use
| in install.packages (). Probably this would be done using an extra argument to
| install.packages () and update.packages ():
| 
| install.packages ([...], install.wrapper=NULL)
| 
| The argument value I would typically want to supply on my system (running in a
| KDE Session) would be: install.wrapper="kdesu --" . I.e. I would like to run the
| R CMD INSTALL command through kdesu.
| 
| Technically it would basically function like this:
| 
| Instead of
| 
| cmd0 <- paste(file.path(R.home("bin"),"R"), "CMD INSTALL")
| 
| in install.packages (), it would read
| 
| cmd0 <- paste(install.wrapper, file.path(R.home("bin"),"R"), "CMD INSTALL")
| 
| This feature would save me a lot of small hazzles.
| 
| ______________________________________________
| R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
| https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

-- 
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. 
                                                  -- Thomas A. Edison