[R-sig-Debian] "Graphics history" in UNIX

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 10 July 2010 at 11:54, Ross Boylan wrote:
| On Thu, 2010-07-08 at 16:41 +0200, Scotti Roberto wrote:
| > stimulates a very basic question: "Is it possible to avoid building
| > from 
| > source using R in Kubuntu?
| > I shifted over from MS only recently. In Windows I used to easily 
| > download packages and use them.
| > Now, every time I downloaded a new piece, I had the impression that 
| > building from source was necessary.
| > Am I wrong?
| > Many thanks Roberto
| Generally, building from source is not necessary.  I think the other
| responses agreeing that it is necessary were assuming you were
| interested in some slightly exotic R package (which may be the case).
| 
| The point of most distributions is to provide pre-compiled binary
| packages; particularly on Debian these are very good about indicating
| what other packages they require.  If you use a tool like aptitude and
| tell it you want package X, it will automatically pull in all other
| required packages.  Ubuntu is a Debian derivative.
| 
| Both R and many of its packages are in Debian.
| 
| If you have a package that is not already built you can build it
| yourself or use cran2deb (assuming it's on CRAN).  As others have noted,
| cran2deb is only intended for Debian testing (aka squeeze) on some
| architectures.  It's also currently a bit broken.  You can try using the
| archive in another environment (e.g., Ubuntu), but if you want something
| that is not a gamble for R, running Debian testing (maybe in a VM) would
| be the safest route.  Of course, it's called testing rather than stable
| for a reason.
| 
| I think the cran2deb packages, which are generated automatically, are
| less likely to have complete dependency information than those in the
| main distribution.

Huh?  If the info wasn't complete, they'd break. They don't break, so the
info appears to complete. Please don't spread misinformation.
 
D.

| Finally, you expressed concern for your students.  You can build a
| binary package locally and then your students can use it.  Doing so for
| someone new to Linux is probably a heavy lift.
| 
| Ross Boylan
| 
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-- 
  Regards, Dirk