[R-sig-Debian] A guide to R packages for Ubuntu

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 29 April 2012 at 13:48, Lee Hachadoorian wrote:
| Thanks so much for this information. I have a question about 
| cran2deb4ubuntu PPA. Currently I use a CRAN repository, then 
| install.packages() within R for whatever isn't available in the 
| repository. If I want to use cran2deb4ubuntu, does it completely replace 
| the CRAN repository? Or do I use both and let the package manager 
| determine where to retrieve a package from?

It is entirely independent, and R resolves what it loads via .libPath(). On
my system, with the default suggested by the Debian / Ubuntu package

  R> .libPaths()
  [1] "/usr/local/lib/R/site-library" "/usr/lib/R/site-library"       
  [3] "/usr/lib/R/library"           
  R> 

the local R packages always win.
 
| Also, since I have many packages installed within R, do you know what 
| the effect would be of adding the PPA? Would installed packages get 
| updated, or would I have to uninstall in R and reinstall via PPA?

No need, but see above and understand what .libPaths does. It's all
documented and has been answered before, eg 

  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2170043/r-apt-get-install-r-cran-foo-vs-install-packagesfoo

Dirk

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