[R-sig-Debian] Help for sources.list

[Douglas Bates]

As both you and Dirk have made considerable contributions to the R
project, although in different contexts, I will try to smooth out some
of the wrinkles in the communication.  The thing to realize is that
the Debian packages for R on the Debian archives are updated only when
a new release of Debian is prepared, and that is infrequent.  On the
other hand the Debian packages for R on the CRAN archives are updated
frequently.  It is not uncommon to have them updated within a few
hours of a new release of R.

This is why many respondents have suggested something like the explanation at

http://cran.uk.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian

which says, in effect, that you should add the line

deb http://cran.uk.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian lenny-cran/

to your sources.list file.



On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 10:07 AM, Ted Harding
<Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 05-Jun-10 15:03:55, Ted Harding wrote:
>> On 05-Jun-10 14:34:24, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
>>>
>>> Ted,
>>>
>>> On 5 June 2010 at 14:23, (Ted Harding) wrote:
>>>| Greetings!
>>>| I would be very grateful if someone could supply a suitable
>>>| line to enter into /etc/apt/sources.list for the benefit of
>>>| a complete dummy user (i.e. me -- I do not want to have to
>>>| do any interpretation, guesswork, reading of docs, etc.;
>>>| I want to just copy it in).
>>>|
>>>| The machine in question is an Intel laptop, wuth Debian Lenny
>>>| (according to the Debian website the current stable version
>>>| as of 12 Feb 2010). The current contents of /etc/apt/sources.list
>>>| are:
>>>| =======
>>>| deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
>>>| deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
>>>|
>>>| deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free
>>>| deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib
>>>| non-free
>>>|
>>>| deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main
>>>| deb-src http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile
>>>| main
>>>|
>>>| deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org lenny main
>>>| =======
>>>|
>>>| I had not been using this machine for running R, until I tried it
>>>| yesterday and was shocked to find that the R version installed is
>>>|
>>>|   R 2.7.1 (2008-06-23)
>>>|
>>>| compared with the version I have on my regular machine, which is
>>>| R 2.11.0 (2010-04-22). Then I was shocked, on visiting the Debian
>>>| Lenny webpage, to find that the currently held version of R is
>>>
>>> What part of "stable" is unclear?  When you opt for "stable", you ask
>>> Debian
>>> not to change your packages.
>>>
>>> So remarking that it doesn't update your R package, or preferred
>>> editor, or
>>> whatever, is inconsistent with what _you_ have chosen. A _stable_
>>> selection
>>> of packages.  I am not a native speaker of English but stable seems to
>>> imply
>>> 'does not change' reasonably well.
>>>
>>> So I am puzzled why this is so hard to explain.
>>>
>>> Now, maybe you are complaining that Debian has too few releases which
>>> is a
>>> different matter and requires a bit more of a meta-discussion.  Too
>>> many,
>>> Ubuntu is a reasonable compromise between stability and bi-annual
>>> updates. I
>>> use it myself, but I also use (and like) Debian testing. It depends.
>>>
>>> But by choosing Lenny you got what you asked for.  Now, as you asked,
>>> ...
>>>
>>>| the same as the above: "2.7.1-1+lenny" for all the basic R packages.
>>>| No wonder I have not been getting updates!
>>>|
>>>| I am located in the UK.
>>>|
>>>| What should I put in /etc/apt/sources.list ? (Maybe more than one
>>>| line, if that would be relevant to installing/updating a variety
>>>| of R packages).
>>>
>>> It is all documented, and a Google search for 'debian lenny R package'
>>> gets
>>> me there as a first hit. See the bin/linux/debian/ directory of any
>>> CRAN
>>> mirror.
>>>
>>> There are occassional mistakes (as Michael Friendly recently noticed)
>>> but the
>>> page makes an earnest attempt at documenting this so I won't repeat it
>>> here.
>>> If you have suggestions to make it clearer, please let Johannes or us
>>> know.
>>>
>>> This also gets discussed here regularly so you may find looking at the
>>> list
>>> archives beneficial.
>>>
>>> Good luck.
>>>
>>> --
>>>   Regards, Dirk
>>
>> Duncan, I am sorry but your reply is of no help at all.
>> Goodbye.
>
> I meant "Dirk".
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> Date: 05-Jun-10                                       Time: 16:07:18
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