[R] Which Linux OS on Athlon amd64, to comfortably run R?

[Peter Dalgaard]

8rino-Luca Pantani wrote:
> Dear R-users.
> I eventually bought myself a new computer with the following 
> characteristics:
>
> Processor AMD ATHLON 64 DUAL CORE 4000+ (socket AM2)
> Mother board ASR SK-AM2 2
> Ram Corsair Value 1 GB DDR2 800 Mhz
> Hard Disk WESTERN DIGITAL 160 GB SATA2 8MB
>
> I'm a newcomer to the Linux world.
> I started using it (Ubuntu 7.10 at work and FC4 on laptop) on a regular 
> basis on May.
> I must say I'm quite comfortable with it, even if I have to re-learn a 
> lot of things.  But this is not a problem, I will improve my knowledge 
> with time.
>
> My main problem now, is that I installed Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon on the 
> new one amd64.
>
> To install R on it i followed the directions found here
> http://help.nceas.ucsb.edu/index.php/Installing_R_on_Ubuntu
>
> but unfortunately it did not work.
>
> After reading some posts on the R-SIG-debian list, such as
>
> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-debian/2007-October/000253.html
>
> I immediately realize that an amd64 is not the right processor to make 
> life easy.
>
> Therefore I would like to know from you, how can I solve this problem:
> Should I install the i386 version of R ?
> Should I install another flavour of Linux ?
> Which one ?
> Fedora Core 7 ?
> Debian ?
>
> Thanks a lot, for any suggestion
>
>   
Amd64 architecture should not be a major issue for R on any of the major
platforms, as far as I know. I have Fedora 7 (soon-ish F8) on the "big"
machine back home (dual Opteron) and that one never had any major issues
with either of source builds or the "official" RPMs. The main (only?)
thing that still tends to bite people on 64 bit is browser plugins,
notably Java.

In general, I've been happy with Fedora, although its desire to update
itself constantly does require a good 'Net connection.

My SUSE desktop at work is also 64 bit and happy to deal with R (in fact
the official release builds are made on it). The KDE desktop has a few
annoying misfeatures (to me), though, and you need a little special
setup to include Detlefs repository as an install source.

One oddity about Ubuntu is that there are no CRAN builds for 64bit.
Presumably, the Debian packages work, or you can get the build script
and make your own build. This is not really within my domain, though.


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907