[R] Fedora Core 4

[Marc Schwartz]

In follow up to Prof. Ripley's post, having participated in the
referenced r-devel thread, I would note that I have been able to build
Version 2.1.1 beta (2005-06-17) and all CRAN packages from source using
both FC4 fortran compilers.

However, I am back to using g77 based upon Prof. Ripley's
recommendations.

As mentioned, the problem below is likely the mixing and matching of
compiled R executables from FC3 and FC4.

Jon, I would recommend re-compiling a full and clean installation of R
(including any CRAN packages), using which ever version of R you are
running at the moment.

If you did not install the referenced compatibility RPMs during the
initial installation, it is available via the Add/Remove Applications
GUI:

GNOME menu -> Desktop -> System Settings -> Add/Remove Applications

Once the GUI is up, scroll down and select "Development". Then select
the 2 packages in the "Legacy Software Development" set, which includes
the two "compat" sets of programs. You will need your install CD/DVD to
load the RPMS.

Alternatively, you can use:

# yum groupinstall "Legacy Software Development"

from a console as root.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz


On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 13:00 +0100, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> There has been discussion of this on R-devel in the context of the release 
> of 2.1.1.
> 
> FC4 contains gfortran, not g77 (unless you install everything when you 
> get g77 from gcc-3.2.3 in some compatibility RPM).  This is not a bug: R 
> compiled on one OS (or even machine) is not expected to work on another.
> -lg2c is part of gcc-3.x.y, and gfortran uses something like -lgfortran 
> (FC3's gcc4 didn't use the standard name, so I am being cautious).
> 
> I think it is fortuitous that R runs in your tests without crashing: 
> libRlapack.so is linked against libg2c.0.0 and actually calls entry points 
> in it.  (The R executable is also linked but seems to contain no such 
> entry points.)
> 
> I would suggest installing 2.1.1 on Monday from the sources, or waiting 
> for a 2.1.1 RPM.  I believe gcc-3.4.4 is still a better choice than 
> gcc-4.0.0 on ix86: it runs faster and there are several cases in which 
> 4.0.0 appears to give incorrect answers.  I am waiting for the eventual 
> release of 4.0.1 to test these more thoroughly.  (See the notes in the 
> R-admin manual: fortunately FC4's gcc4 is just recent enough to avoid the 
> showstopper bug.)
> 
> On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Jonathan Baron wrote:
> 
> > I had installed R from source on Fedora Core 3.  Then I upgraded
> > to Fedora Core 4, but left R alone.  R worked fine, until I trued
> > to update.packages().  Even then, many packages updated just
> > fine, but two of them, cluster and mgcv, failed with the
> > following error message (using cluster as an example):
> >
> > gcc -shared -L/usr/local/lib -o cluster.so clara.o daisy.o
> > dysta.o fanny.o meet.o mona.o pam.o spannel.o twins.o  -lg2c -lm -lgcc_s
> > /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lg2c
> > collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> > make: *** [cluster.so] Error 1
> >
> > I tracked this down as far as I could and got to this page:
> > http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/usage.html
> > in the section about "Compatability with g77."  The problem seems
> > to have something to do with Fortran.
> 
> Interesting spelling!
> 
> > Before I invest more time, I wonder if someone knows what to do.
> > Options:
> > 1. Re-install R from source.
> > 2. Try the RPM for Fedora Core 4.  It isn't in CRAN, but it is in
> > Fedora "extras".  R is now part of the Fedora distribution,
> > albeit one of the many things they have put in "extras" in an
> > effort to limit the distribution to 4 CDs.
> > 3. Report a bug.  But where?  Is it a bug in R?
> > 4. Something else.
>