[R] R + Linux

[Roland Rau]

Dear all,

a related follow up -- with the hope for some feedback from the specialists.
Is the following general advice justified:
=========================================================
If one has not more than 4GB RAM and one wants to run primarily R on 
one's Linux machine, it is a good idea to install the 32bit version of 
the operating system.
The reasons are:
The machine has 4GB RAM which implies that the 32bit version can 
(theoretically) use the whole available memory address space. The 
advantage of addressing more memory using 64bit is in this instance of a 
4GB computer lost. Furthermore, 64bit often runs slower than 32bit (see 
Section 8 of R Admin Manual) due to the larger pointer size.
=========================================================

Thanks,
Roland


steven wilson wrote:
> Dear all;
> 
> I'm planning to install Linux on my computer to run R (I'm bored of
> W..XP). However, I haven't used Linux before and I would appreciate,
> if possible, suggestions/comments about what could be the best option
> install, say Fedora, Ubuntu or OpenSuse which to my impression are the
> most popular ones (at least on the R-help lists). The computer is a PC
> desktop with 4GB RAM and  Intel Quad-Core Xeon processor and will be
> used only to run R.
> 
> Thanks
> Steven
>