R-beta: which Linux - again

[Douglas Bates]

(Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk> writes:

> On 16-Jul-98 Lorenz Gygax wrote:

> > I think this question has been raised very recently but I think I didn't
> > see repsonses on the list nor did I find the thread in the archives.  (If
> > it is there I'd appreciate directions ...) 

> Where Red Hat is concerned, note that the latest release (5.1) has moved over
> to the new glibc libraries for the gcc compiler (reportedly bringing Linux gcc
> back into sync with GNU gcc); I don't know how this would affect installation,
> compiling, or use of R. Other distributions, as far as I know, have yet to take
> this step.

My general advice is to go with RedHat or Debian because of their more
sophisticated packaging systems.  RedHat 5.0 and 5.1 use the newer,
thread-safe version of GNU libc (called libc6 in the Linux world or
GNU libc 2 elsewhere).  Debian 2.0 also uses libc6.  R 0.61.1 is part of
the standard Debian 2.0 release.  Right now Debian 2.0 is in beta test
but it is stable enough to install.  We hope the official release of
Debian 2.0 will be "later this month" but the deadline has a habit of
slipping.  See http://www.debian.org/ and http://www.redhat.com/ for
more information.

There are .rpm packages of R for installation under RedHat 5.0 or 5.1
available at the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) sites.  I
create up-to-date packages for Debian and upload them to the
"unstable" section of the Debian archive sites.

RedHat is a commercial product and provides better installation help
than does Debian.  Debian is an all-volunteer effort.  It provides
greater "tunability" once you get past its initial installation.

Distributions based on Slackware tend to be hard to maintain because
the packaging system is not nearly as sophisticated as that from
RedHat or Debian.  I know several people who have installed Slackware
then later replaced it by RedHat or Debian.  I don't know of anyone
who has gone the other way.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._