[R-sig-Debian] Compilation of R packages

[Vincent Goulet]

Le Mercredi 5 Juillet 2006 18:51, Dirk Eddelbuettel a écrit :
> On 5 July 2006 at 22:55, Christian T. Steigies wrote:
> | On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 11:53:42AM -0400, Vincent Goulet wrote:
> | > Le Mercredi 5 Juillet 2006 09:41, Dirk Eddelbuettel a écrit :
> | > > Salut Vincent,
> | > >
> | > > On 4 July 2006 at 23:27, Vincent Goulet wrote:
> | > > | I'm currently following your procedure suggested on R-SIG-Debian
> | > > | (https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-debian/2006-June/000095.html)
> | > > | to compile and install the latest version of R on Kubuntu. It is my
> | > > | understanding that I can't just use Debian unstable's binary
> | > > | packages (which is too bad).
> | > >
> | > > It may be worth trying. Debian unstable may well be ahead in terms of
> | > > certain libraries but you can try.
> | >
> | > Just tried installing r-base from Debian unstable. It requires updating
> | > libc6 (from 2.3.6-0ubuntu20 to 2.3.6-15). I cancelled the operation in
> | > fear of wrecking my newly installed system havoc.
> |
> | Did you try to install the sarge backport packages? Those do not require
> | updated libc6 packages, so perhaps they work on ubuntu?
>
> Good point. I think they definitely worked for Ubuntu 05.10 (== Oct 2005)
> and it may indeed work on Ubuntu 06.06.

Althought I did very little testing, I can confirm that the sarge (stable) 
backport packages of R 2.3.1 available from CRAN install and seem to work 
flawlessly with Ubuntu 6.06.

That said, I am still wondering if there would be any use for 
up-to-date/backport Ubuntu packages of R. Perhaps the current situation of 
Debian stable packages working with the latest Ubuntu is not guaranteed to 
hold for future releases?

I remain interested to maintain such packages if needs be. Before going any 
further, though, I would need to clarify two things.

1) What are the differences between the *sources* of the Debian unstable 
packages (of R) and the Debian stable backport packages from CRAN (other than 
the r-recommended Depends field). Perhaps just a different set of rules?

2) It seems to me even simpler to just start from the unstable packages. But 
then, I have the problem of compiling the r-cran-* packages in the correct 
order. This brings me back to my original question, addressed to Dirk 
privately: what is the correct order? Dirk, I thought you "knew" since you 
compile the packages for unstable and testing. How do you proceed?

Sorry if this thread is becoming too long. And please keep in mind that I am 
mostly an end-user, not a Debian developer of maintainer.

Best,

Vincent

> | > This is exactly what I did (except the modifications to debian/control)
> | > and triggered my question. Building r-base builds r-recommended, but
> | > not the r-cran-* packages r-recommended depends on. Then it seems that
> | > building of the r-cran-* packages must be done in a specific order.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | > As (K)Ubuntu seem to become increasingly popular flavours of Debian, it
> | > would certainly be worth adding a note. Or perhaps someone might be
> | > interested to maintain up-to-date Ubuntu packages of R?
> |
> | I did not see the question/problem?
> |
> | > Look,
> | >
> | > 1) I have no experience whatsoever in maintaining Debian/Ubuntu
> | > packages; 2) I do not know exactly how more recent versions of packages
> | > are distributed for Ubuntu;
> | >
> | > however, if nobody else with more experience than I is interested to
> | > maintain such packages, I might try to do my part. I'll just need a
> | > mentor. ;-)
> |
> | I don't have an Ubuntu box, as I do not use Ubuntu at all. I guess I
> | might find the space to setup an ubuntu chroot, but that would require
> | some more convincing and time (so definetely not before sunday)!
> |
> | I think the sarge backported packages should be installable on ubuntu
> | systems, and if not, you could simply use the sources I prepared for the
> | backports and try building with them on Ubuntu. That's exactly what I
> | would do if I had an Ubunto chroot.
> | Get the source from your favourite CRAN mirror or directly from my debian
> | page, this should work in /etc/apt/sources.list
> | deb-src http://people.debian.org/~cts/debian stable/
> |
> | apt-get source r-base, install the build-depends, and build the package
> | (dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot or debuild). As Dirk said, I changed the
> | r-recommended package to include all r-cran-* packages to make the
> | maintenance of the backport easier for me. Actually, Dirk suggested this
> | when I started the backport. This is a little tricky for upgrading since
> | r-cran-* packages are only overwritten but not removed, but I think we
> | solved most problems there (just an installation problem, no problems
> | with running the packages). If you run into those problems, the cleanest
> | way is to remove the currently installed r-recommended (and with it
> | r-base), and then install the packages from the backport.
>
> We're certainly getting better at this over time :)
>
> Dirk

-- 
  Vincent Goulet, Associate Professor
  École d'actuariat
  Université Laval, Québec 
  Vincent.Goulet at act.ulaval.ca   http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca