[R] R for Mac OS X: 10.3.9 is obsolete?

[Peter Dalgaard]

"iit512" <iit512 at yandex.ru> writes:

> Dear all,
> 
> I am highly disappointed of the following decision:
> 
> === ... Starting with R 2.3.0, CRAN binaries support Mac OS X 10.4
> (Tiger) and higher only. ===
> 
> Of course, 
> 
> === It is, however, possible to compile binaries for earlied OS X
> versions from sources. ===
> 
> But the process, described on
> http://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/RMacOSX-FAQ.html#Building-R-from-sources
> consists of more than 9 steps and is much more complex than
> installing R for Linux. And I think that most Mac users (like their
> Windows colleagues) cannot compile any application from source...
> 
> Even worse, I also suspect (there is no information, actually) that
> from R 2.3.0 there will not be precompiled binaries of R packages
> for Mac OS X < 10.4 in CRAN :-((

Once the tools are in place, it doesn't really look much different
from the Linux process. One little hitch is that the current
instructions don't tell you how to get a Fortran compiler except from
the 2.3.x binaries, which is a bit of a catch-22.

> So, the question is, is there any volunteers who could produce R
> binaries for Mac OS X 10.3.9? Since it will be "unofficial", I will
> provide the Web space.

I don't think alternative web space is necessary. There's no rule that
CRAN binaries have to be made by the core team, and some of the Linux
versions aren't. The real problem is whether anyone wants to lock
their precious Macs to an obsolete version of the OS...

 
> With best wishes and regards,
> 
> Alexey Shipunov




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