[R] R under Pocket PC

[David Whiting]

"A.J. Rossini" <blindglobe at gmail.com> writes:

> One concern I recall from looking into this a while back (hopefully
> not founded) was the issue with floating point handling on the ARMs
> and similar PDA CPUs.

> This was relevant to the familiar/intimate linux distro's around 18-24
> months ago, when I was considering an IPAQ or Zaurus to replace my old
> but not dead yet palm.

Ah, yes, I remember this now. I've just searched the R archives and
must admit the prospects do not look good.  I don't know much about
floating point handling, the FPU, etc., but a quick search of the
Linux/Psion 5MX archive led me to this:

"So, if you decide to switch to using soft-float for some application,
you MUST recompile ALL the libraries that application is going to use,
including system libraries like the C library.  If those libraries are
dynamically linked libraries, you then must also recompile all the
applications that share those same libraries. And then your
application will run correctly only on systems with soft-float
environments, unless you link it statically in which case it will run
anywhere (even on a kernel with NWFPE configured in -- it will simply
not be invoked). That"s the main reason why mainstream ARM
distributions are still reluctant to switch to soft-float because of
the associated compatibility pain."

If I understand this correctly it looks like it might be possible if I
recompile everything, something that I was hoping I would be able to
avoid. On the other hand, it could be a great learning experience.

Even if R does not work 100% I'm still going to be happy having my
other applications and files with me.  I'll report back on how I get
on.

Dave.

-- 
David Whiting
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK