[R] installing R on slackware linux, another route

[Martyn Plummer]

On 21-Jan-00 Jonathan.Yuen at evp.slu.se wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2000, Christopher Marshall wrote:
> 
>> I have been reading the archives of this list and
>> noticed a post from Murray Jorgensen asking about how
>> to install R under slackware.
> 
> Much interesting stuff about how to bypass the rpm stuff deleted...
> 
>> 
>> To add such a link, go to /lib as root and type
>> 
>> ln -sf libncurses.so.5 libncurses.so.4
>> 
> 
> Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but if my memory of how shared
> objects and ldconfig function under linux, this may cause problems, maybe
> not with R but with other programs!!
> 
> The differences between the so.4 and the so.5 are MAJOR changes, and the
> major number was changed (from 4 to 5) because there are modifications in
> the library that are not consistent between 4 and 5.  You can change the
> minor numbers (which we don't see here), but usually ldconfig in linux
> takes care of that.  On my (really hacked up) linux machines, I just
> installed libncurses5.  When I type 
> 
> ldconfig -v | grep libncur
> 
> I get
> 
> libncurses.so.5 => libncurses.so.5.0
> 
> Here the minor number is 0, though a later version will be 1, or 2, etc.
> When the people doing ncurses can't keep backwards compatibility, they
> change the major number, and you get libncurses.so.6.0 (it doesn't exist,
> does it?) which ldconfig will link to libncurses.so.6 and the whole thing
> starts again.
> 
> ncurses 5 may handle some things different from ncurses 4.  The safest
> thing is to get libncurses.4.? installed and let ldconfig make the links.
> 
> Jonathan

I agree, I don't think this is a very good idea. In fact it seems like a
lot of trouble to go to, when building R from source takes only three
command lines.  I maintain the RPM packages for R and I'd have to say I
think the benefits of this approach are outweighed by the disadvantages.

Martyn

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