[Rd] compiling R under cygwin

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007, Duncan Murdoch wrote:

> The issue is compatibility with other Windows programs.  /path/to/file works 
> in lots of Windows programs, and is interpreted relative to the current 
> drive.  In the common situation where the user only has one partition which 
> is mounted as C:, it works (as long as they didn't switch to a CD or USB 
> drive).

In particular, it does not work on my system where I need to run under two 
OSes, Vista64 on C: and WinXP on D:, with common development on E: .

I had originally intended to work entirely on E: and mount E:/ as /, which 
is what you need to get Cygwin to return /path/to/file for working files 
on E: . But Cygwin does not handle permissions on a Vista NTFS file system 
well enough.

Latchezar (Lucho) Dimitrov wrote

> 5. AFAIK 64-bit R on your favorite Windows is far far away (even Windows
> is not close enough although it's getting there) and I'd like to see
> those above (and enjoy watching them) when Windows is not enough, e.g.,
> microarray analysis/BioConductor.

That's just not true.  There have been reports of 64-bit R ports to 
Windows and many people are running 64-bit Windows on servers and some on 
desktops (including me).  A MinGW-based 64-bit R for Windows is under 
active development (which is why I have Vista64 installed).  This is even 
covered in the rw-FAQ (Q8.1, and yes that is a file with numbered TOC).

What seems 'far, far away' is something like Cygwin for 64-bit Windows.
(I saw on a Cygwin list that RedHat wanted $$$$$ to do it, for too many 
$$$$$ for the potential customers.)  The 32-bit version is said to work 
under the WOW 32-bit emulation layer but many of us find it flaky.

Personally I use Linux (the main OS on the machine I mention above) and 
Solaris: however many R users (quite possibly the substantial majority of 
all R users even excluding student usage) want a native Windows version.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595