[R-sig-Debian] R installation for Ubuntu (Karmic)

[Douglas Bates]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Mark Johnson <mark at vector-group.com> wrote:
> Mr. Bates,
>
> I'm a relatively new Ubuntu user trying to understand how to download and
> install R (I've already loaded the Vista version)
>
> I noted your name in the distribution files for R for Ubuntu.  Since you're
> listed as an uploader, I am hoping you can answer my questions or direct me
> to the correct person.

At one time Dirk Eddelbuettel and I were listed as co-maintainers of
the R packages for Debian (and hence for Ubuntu) but Dirk was doing
all the work so I asked that he get all the credit.

> Is there an instruction file for the Ubuntu neophyte?  Something that
> describes which files comprise the download and instructions for
> installation?

You can use the packages in the Ubuntu distribution but they are
generally out-of-date.  We have an unfortunate habit of releasing new
versions of R just after the next version of Ubuntu is frozen.  But
not to worry - there are instructions on any CRAN archive, e.g.
http://cran.us.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu on how to install R and
associated packages on Ubuntu from the CRAN archive which has the
latest releases.

There is also an active Special Interest Group (SIG) mailing list for
R on Debian or Ubuntu, which I have taken the liberty of cc:'ing on
this reply.  In the future I would recommend sending such questions to
that list rather than to me.  You are more likely to get a faster
response from the list.

> I used SPlus for a long time till my old version no longer ran on the
> current version of windows.  I was glad to see R is out here, and have
> downloaded it for Vista and it works fine, though it will take me some
> practice before I will be comfortable with it.
>
> Recently I replaced the motherboard and updated components on an old PC and
> installed UBUNTU on that.  I was trying to download and install R for
> Ubuntu, but where I got one download and install file for Vista, there are a
> LOT of different files for Ubuntu, and I don't know how to proceed.
>
> From a historical perspective, I used a predecessor tool known at AT&T Bell
> Labs as "Statlib" (just like the statistical repository).  I'm unsure of the
> historical development path, but believe Statlib was a precursor of R and S,
> but was based on an unmaintainable codebase of hundreds of thousands of
> lines of undocumented Fortran spaghetti code which led to the development of
> R and S, and eventually to SPlus.
>
>
> Warmest Regards,
>
> Mark Johnson
> Principal
> Vector Group Services
> PH:  972-370-1515
> CELL:  214-606-0553
> EMAIL:  mark at vector-group.com
> TWITTER:  VGPricing
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> "Logic will get you from A to B.
> Imagination will take you everywhere."
>                 Albert Einstein
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