[R] Degree symbol

[stephen's mailinglist account]

I have been using both Windows and Linux versions of R so when I have
opened files created in Windows I have found some issues in Linux. One
was that my windows setup allowed me to enter a degree symbol from the
keyboard for labelling axes.
Now I have found that the following expression seems to work on both systems

xlab = expression(paste("Temperature [",degree,"C]")),

(I found this on someone's blog, but I forget who-- thank you whoever you are).

Now my question is can I set up my Linux (ubuntu) system to recognise
the degree symbol input from the keyboard, or for the sake of
portability should I just go with the solution I have found?
-- 
Stephen