[R] Problem with eigen() and LAPACK

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

Hi Hans,

On Fri, Apr 18, 2003 at 11:55:33AM -0400, Hans Gardfjell wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> when testing the new improvements in the new 1.7.0-version I stumbled 
> over the following:
> 
> >eigen(matrix(c(0,.3,2,.9),2,2))
> Error in eigen(matrix(c(0,.3,2,.9),2,2)) :
>         LAPACK routine DGEEV gave error code -13
> 
> 
> >eigen(matrix(c(0,.3,2,.9),2,2),EISPACK=TRUE)
> $values
> [1]  1.3458236 -0.4458236
> 
> $vectors
>            [,1]       [,2]
> [1,] -1.1436890 -0.9760443
> [2,] -0.7696018  0.2175718
> 
> 
> My R-version
> [1] "R version 1.7.0, 2003-04-16", running on Debian PC.

Am I correct in assumimg that you are using Debian 3.0 aka "stable",
along with the R 1.7.0 package from CRAN?

The example above works fine for me on Debian "testing". R on testing was
built using the (almost) identical configuration at compile-time (gcc 3.0
and tcl/tk 8.3 on stable; 3.2 and 8.4 on testing) and the difference should
therefore be attributable to the libraries and compilers used, which are,
generally speaking, up to a year more recent on testing.
 
> Anyone who has a clue why LAPACK refuses to solve the eigenvalues?

I suspect an problem with the LAPACK libs on the stable release. Matthias
Burger reported a similar problem. We may just have to configure R to not
use Lapack on that older platform unless we find a way to tame this.

Dirk

-- 
Don't drink and derive. Alcohol and algebra don't mix.