[R] Is R portable?

[Tom Backer Johnsen]

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Dec 2007, John Kane wrote:
> 
>> I simply installed R onto a USB stick, downloaded my
>> normal packages to it and it works fine under Windows.
> 
> Yes, on Windows, but
> 
> 1) There are other OSes,
> 
> 2) This didn't just happen: it needed some careful design, including 
> some caching to make it run fast from a USB disk.

Nice to discover good planning.  Am I then correct in my
understanding: Installing R under Windows does not require any
registry entries, the installation is essentially to unpack the
necessary files in the correct directories?

Tom
> 
> 
> Unix-alike ports of R are not completely portable, as the path to R_HOME 
> is encapsulated in the R and Rscript front ends.  So if on, say, Linux 
> you want to plug in a USB disc then it will only work if you installed R 
> to that USB disk mounted at the same location in the file system, or are 
> prepared to edit the copies of the R script (which had therefore better 
> be mounted read-write).
> 
> The standard MacOS build has standard paths encapsulated in many places.
> 
>>
>>
>> --- Roland Rau <roland.rproject at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Tom,
>>>
>>> did you check the R for Windows FAQ?
>>>
>> http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rw-FAQ.html#Can-I-run-R-from-a-CD-or-USB-drive_003f 
>>
>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>> Roland
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom Backer Johnsen wrote:
>>>> Recently I came across an interesting web site:
>>>> http://portableapps.com/.  The idea is simple,
>>> this is software that
>>>> is possible to install and run on some type of USB
>>> memory, a stick or
>>>> one of these hard disks.  I can think of a number
>>> of situations where
>>>> this could be handy.  In addition memory sticks
>>> are getting cheaper
>>>> and more powerful by the day.
>>>>
>>>> So:  Is it possible to run R off one of these
>>> sticks?
>>>>
>>>> I am also informed that it is possible to run
>>> Latex in this manner.
>>>>
>>>> Tom
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained,
>>> reproducible code.
>>>>
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained,
>>> reproducible code.
>>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
> 


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| Tom Backer Johnsen, Psychometrics Unit,  Faculty of Psychology |
| University of Bergen, Christies gt. 12, N-5015 Bergen,  NORWAY |
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