[R] Building customized R for Windows installer using 'make myR'

[Uwe Ligges]

On 10.04.2012 20:24, Josh O'Brien wrote:
> I am attempting to build a customized R installer on Windows, using the Inno
> Setup installer.
>
> I am following the instructions in Section 3.1.8 of the R Installation and
> Administration Manual ("Building the Inno Setup installer"), which includes
> the following passage:
>
>        An alternative way to customize the installer starting with a binary
> distribution is to first
>        make a full installation of R from the standard installer (that is,
> select ‘Full Installation’
>        from the ‘Select Components’ screen), then add packages and make other
> customizations to
>        that installation. Then (after having customized file ‘MkRules’,
> possibly via ‘MkRules.local’,
>        and having made R in the source tree) in ‘src/gnuwin32/installer’ run
> :
>
>            make myR IMAGEDIR=rootdir
>
> Unfortunately, I have run into two difficulties, the first minor, but the
> second more of a stumbling block:
>
> (1) The standard installer for R-2.15.0 does not offer a 'Full Installation'
> option on the 'Select Components' screen.


Yes, the options changed. See the Windows specific CHANGES.



> (2) The standard installer for R-2.14.2 does offer such a 'Full
> Installation' option. However, despite having selected it, the newly
> installed R directory does not contain a R_HOME/src/gnuwin32/installer
> directory (let alone files 'MkRules' or 'MkRules.local'). R_HOME/src/ does
> exist, but it contains only a directory named 'library'.

Yes, the installer does not contain sources (also the one you can get 
from CRAN does not contain them).
If you want to distributed such files as well, you have to change the 
code that is used for building the Inno installer related files.

Uwe Ligges


>
> Am I missing something important here, and if so what is it?
>
> As one alternative approach, could I employ the strategy described in the
> quoted passage above with a version of R that I've compiled myself and then
> edited slightly (by adding packages and making a few changes to
> Rprofile.site)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Josh O'Brien
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Building-customized-R-for-Windows-installer-using-make-myR-tp4546508p4546508.html
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>
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