[R-sig-Debian] Installing R on Debian testing...

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 19 March 2009 at 10:08, tyler wrote:
| Petar Milin <pmilin at ff.uns.ac.rs> writes:
| 
| > I have posted this question at the R-HELP, general.
| 
| This is definitely the place for such questions.

Yup.

| > I recently switched to Debian testing OS and explanation at the:
| > http://cran.at.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian/
| > is a little bit fuzzy. Can anyone give step-by-step how-to have updated
| > R on Debian testing and/or unstable.
| 
| If you're already running testing, you don't need to add anything to
| your sources.list. All the R packages are there, and they'll be mostly
| up to date for the foreseeable future. Generally, when new R versions
| and packages are released, they get put into unstable within a few days,
| and migrate to testing within a couple of weeks.

Well, yes, but

a) sometimes releases or library transitions happen which makes the 'ten day'
rule inapplicable. R 2.8.* took months to reach testing, which is why the
CRAN port is offered.

b) that said, you can often get R from Debian unstable onto testing. I do
that, but that is a more advanced route than what you asked.

| You only need to add lines to your sources.list if you run stable, which
| doesn't get updated, or if you're running testing close to the time of a
| new release. Which is probably 12 to 18 months off at least.

c) You can also add the CRAN "stable" port to run _current R release_ on
Debian testing via CRAN, just what Petar asked for.  Given that these were
built on 'stable' it is highly likely that they will work on 'testing'.

So use the lines Paul sent to r-help in response to your earlier post:
  
  # Add R-repository
  deb http://cran.at.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian etch-cran/
  deb-src http://cran.at.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian etch-cran/

You want to pair up with a local Debian user to ask such 'how do I ..'
questions over a coffee...

Dirk

| So for now, just install packages as you usually would (aptitude,
| synaptic, apt-get, whatever).
| 
| Same goes if you're running unstable, except that unstable doesn't get
| 'stale' during a freeze like testing does. So in either case, R presents
| no additional problems beyond regular package management for testing or
| unstable. 
| 
| Cheers,
| 
| Tyler
| 
| -- 
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| 
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| 
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