[R] CDs for R?

[Adaikalavan Ramasamy]

There was a similar thread earlier this year 
http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/04/03/1785.html

I think I previously made the suggestion that you could download this
from an internet cafe. I am not sure if these cafes allow you to plug in
your own laptop or burn it for you.

If you have a DVD readable CDROM and a DVD writer, you could opt for
that.

Failing that, you could see if someone in your local R-group or
university department has the latest R on disc.

But the real question is that if there are enough people on slow
connection that are interested in obtaining R.

Regards, Adai


On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 21:39, Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> I'm sure I'm speaking for more than a few (though
> possibly a minority) here.
> 
> There's something of a hidden assumption that R users
> can readily download whatever they need from CRAN.
> 
> Some of us are on narrow bandwidth dialup connections,
> so downloading large quantities of stuff is out of the
> question (e.g. at approx. 5min/MB, it would take over
> 2 days to download a single CD). The meat of CRAN
> (including contributed packages and documentation)
> is enough to fill 5 CDs, though one individual probably
> wouldn't be interested in all of that.
> 
> (And, before anyone asks, no I won't be seeing broadband
> in the foreseeable future!)
> 
> I've worked round this in various ways in the past.
> Some Linux distributions (e.g. RedHat, SuSE) come with the
> basics of R on their CDs, so when I've upgraded Linux
> I've got a new R (though not the latest). Linux Emporium
> once obligingly did me a custom CD very cheaply with the
> contributed packages. A friend with high-bandwidth access
> did me the 5 CDs in return for a pub lunch. And so on.
> One can get round it by bothering someone.
> 
> What I'd like to suggest, for consideration, is that along
> with the stirling work done at many centres to set up and
> maintain mirrors of CRAN, some might consider offering also
> the service of burning CDs on request, for a reasonable
> charge. The difficulty, of course, is that it's going to
> take someone's time om something which may well not be
> their proper business.
> 
> (I'm prompted to think about this again by the emergence
> of R-2 -> 2.0.1 -> one day soon? -> 2.1. This is clearly
> a major advance in R and changes several things, so I'm
> looking at a major download operation, if not by me then
> by somebody that I can get CDs from, if I'm to be sure
> of being up to date on everything I'd like to have. And
> I'm sure I'm not the only one.)
> 
> I'd be interested in people's comments on this proposal.
> 
> Best wishes to all,
> Ted.
> 
> 
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> Date: 16-Nov-04                                       Time: 21:39:14
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-- 
Adaikalavan Ramasamy                    ramasamy at cancer.org.uk
Centre for Statistics in Medicine       http://www.ihs.ox.ac.uk/csm/
Cancer Research UK                      Tel : 01865 226 677
Old Road Campus, Headington, Oxford     Fax : 01865 226 962