[R] Portable R?

[Jacob Michaelson]

I use SLAX on my USB stick (1GB) and I carry R, a host of contributed  
R packages, all the core BioC packages, rkward as the R frontend,  
Octave, and many many more.  SLAX is in my experience much smaller,  
lighter, faster, and more complete than any of the other Linux Live  
CDs out there (my installation with all these packages is about ~600  
MB).  Heck, I even installed my remastered SLAX onto my iPod nano!

Give it a shot.

--Jake

On Nov 16, 2005, at 9:11 PM, David Mitchell wrote:

> Thanks guys,
>
> Dirk: I generally resort to using my laptop for R analysis, but it
> usually involves dragging loads of data multiple times between a
> customer system and my laptop.  Moving large amounts of data in this
> fashion can be a problem, particularly when there's sensitivity issues
> about the data itself.
>
> I've used Quantian in the past, and I've customised my own Knoppix
> CDs, but ideally I'd like to run *my* tools (i.e. R) on *their* system
> so I'm not having to deal with the logistical and security issues that
> come with moving data around between systems.
>
> I didn't realise that the Windows version of R was "relocatable" that
> easily - I just assumed the install did something more complex than
> that.  I'll try copying the R files to a USB key later today.
>
> Thanks again
>
> Dave M.
>
>
> On 11/17/05, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 17 November 2005 at 14:16, David Mitchell wrote:
>> | Hello list,
>> |
>> | A short time ago, I found
>> | http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/portable_apps_suite/, which
>> | contains basically a complete set of office tools that can be run
>> | *entirely* from a USB key.  The concept is:
>> | - find a Windows PC
>> | - put in your USB key
>> | - run OpenOffice, Firefox, Gaim, Nvu, Thunderbird, ... directly  
>> from
>> | your USB key, with no app installation required
>> | - save your files wherever
>> | - remove your USB key and leave, with nothing installed on the  
>> original PC
>> |
>> | As a consultant who battles regularly with limited toolsets at
>> | customer sites, this strikes me as an extremely handy way of  
>> working.
>> |
>> | Has anyone managed to setup a base R configuration that runs  
>> entirely
>> | from USB key?  Being a regular user, but no expert, with R, it'd be
>> | very helpful for me if such a mechanism existed, but I've got no  
>> idea
>> | where to begin in building such a thing.
>>
>> Short answer:
>>         Yes but using Linux, requiring a larger USB stick and some  
>> fiddling.
>>
>> Longer answer:
>>         Quantian (http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian) is a  
>> "everything,
>> the kitchen sink and some" Linux distribution running off a DVD.  
>> Quantian is
>> focussed on quantitative / numeric apps, and tends to include R  
>> plus related
>> goodies -- the last release had an almost complete set of CRAN and
>> BioConductor packages. The raw size of the last release is around  
>> 2 GB,
>> corresponding to 6.6 GB expanded.  Marco Caliari, who often  
>> contributes
>> improved boot code to Quantian, has managed to boot Quantian off a  
>> USB
>> stick. I didn't manage to do that with my laptop, possibly because of
>> limitations in its bios. Some of this was discussed in past  
>> threads on the
>> quantian-general mailing list.
>>
>> Lots-o-work suggestion:
>>         To not require a huge USB stick, you could try to shrink a  
>> given live
>> cdrom such as Knoppix or Ubuntu, then add R and other goodies such  
>> that
>> you're left with around 512 MB compressed. Then throw it onto a  
>> USB stick and
>> make it bootable.
>>
>> Shortcut:
>>         Order a Quantian DVD. Some folks sell them pre-made for  
>> less than $5.
>> Experiment with that, If you like it, consider making your own  
>> mini-distro.
>> Or stick with the DVD and use it directly with the USB stick for your
>> configuration, data, demos, ...
>>
>> Even shorter:
>>         R is perfectly "relocatable". If you install the Windows  
>> binary onto
>> the USB drive, it will run fine. You'll probably need to add  
>> editors and
>> other tools.
>>
>> Hope this helps, Dirk
>>
>> --
>> Statistics: The (futile) attempt to offer certainty about  
>> uncertainty.
>>          -- Roger Koenker, 'Dictionary of Received Ideas of  
>> Statistics'
>>
>
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