[R-sig-Debian] R 2.14.0 for Ubuntu arriving soon: things to watch out for

[Michael Rutter]

Ubuntu R users:

The process of sending the newest builds of R 2.14.0 to the CRAN servers 
has begun.  I would expect to see updates coming to your machines over 
the next 24 hours.  A couple of items to be aware of/watch out for.

 From the latest "R News:

       All packages must have a namespace, and one is created on
       installation if not supplied in the sources.  This means that any
       package without a namespace must be re-installed under this
       version of R (but data-only packages without R code can still be
       used).

This means that some of the packages that you have installed may fail to 
load.  'library(foo)' may result in this error:

Error in library(foo) :
package 'foo' does not have a NAMESPACE and should be re-installed

If you installed the package using R (R CMD INSTALL or 
install.packages()), you will need to re-install the package.  If the 
package authors have update their packages, an update will work, but a 
re-install will fix ones that have not been updated.  If you installed a 
package via apt or synaptic (r-cran-foo), please let me know so I can 
update the build.  I have been trying to fix all of them, but it has 
been difficult to find them all.

I have enabled the use of OpenMP.  This has been known to break the 
revolution-mkl package.  If this effects you, one solution is to not 
upgrade to 2.14 (or roll back by pinning the old version.  Search for 
'pinning apt' or 'pinning synaptic' for more information).  Another 
solution would be to use another package such as OpenBLAS 
(http://xianyi.github.com/OpenBLAS/).

Due to other changes 'under the hood', some packages just break.  For 
example, the package 'sp' would not load until the maintainers updated 
the code.  If a package fails to load for reasons other than a NAMESPACE 
error, check CRAN for updates.

If you have questions or issues, please let me know.
Michael

-- 
Dr. Michael A. Rutter
School of Science
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
Station Road
Erie, PA 16563
http://math.bd.psu.edu/faculty/rutter