[R-sig-Debian] Can't install R 2.15 and r-recommended on Ubuntu

[Paul Gilbert]

On 13-11-07 12:14 PM, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
>
> On 7 November 2013 at 16:53, Kirill Müller wrote:
> | Is it possible to arrange to always keep, for each R version available
> | in the Ubuntu archive, the most recent version of each "recommended"
> | package?
>
> Your requirements appear to be orthogonal to how the distro normally, so
> maybe you think about having a distinct repo.
>
> Dirk
>
Orthogonal in this case may mean null space. Many of the current 
recommended packages list R (>= 3.0.0) in there Depends line. And for 
the ones that list older R versions, you would be assuming that they are 
back-tested against old R versions more carefully than most packages - a 
fair assumption, but ...

As a general principle, I think R and most open source code encourage an 
approach of upgrading regularly. You will not get much sympathy when you 
complain that the newest version of some package does not work with some 
ancient version of R. Open source does tend to differ from commercial 
software in this respect. You might get more sympathy if you are willing 
to pay a lot to lock yourself into the past.

Paul