[R] can R be run without installation on to a computer

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Fri, 31 Mar 2006, Marc Schwartz (via MN) wrote:

> On Sat, 2006-04-01 at 06:45 +1000, Bob Green wrote:
>> I have been trying for a year to get approval to install R on a work
>> computer and am not optimistic of a positive reply in the near future. I
>> was considering whether an option might be to run R from a CD/USB stick.  I
>> looked through the installation manual but could see no mention of this option.
>>
>> If it is possible to run R from a CD or a USB stick without installation to
>> a computer, I would appreciate direction to information or advice on how
>> this might be done,
>>
>> Any assistance is appreciated,
>>
>> regards
>>
>> Bob Green
>
> Your e-mail headers suggest that you are on Windows, thus you might want
> to review this post by Prof. Ripley in a thread from 2004 addressing
> this issue:
>
> http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/41937.html

There is an updated version of that in the rw-FAQ, Q2.6.

I run R from a USB drive quite often, both for demos in talks (on other 
people's Windows systems) and to test R on different Windows versions 
(e.g. 98) with minimal effort.

> Alternatively, if you are comfortable running Linux, Dirk Eddelbuettel
> has kindly provided Quantian:
>
> http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html
>
> which is a Debian Linux based distribution that can run as a Live CD and
> can be booted from the CD without having to actually install it.
>
> HTH,
>
> Marc Schwartz

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595