[R-sig-Fedora] installing R from source on fedora

[peter dalgaard]

On Nov 9, 2011, at 08:27 , Steve Taylor wrote:

> Yes, I got the attachment - thanks!  Might give it a go in the next few
> days, if the repository hasn't been updated with an RPM.  I've already
> learnt from experience to be wary of attempting to compile from source!


We really do want people to do so, though! 

It's an understandable, but unfortunate trend that build processes get monopolized by distribution maintainers. Part of the spirit of Open Source is that everyone can tinker with the code, many eyes looking at the sources, etc. As things are going now, it is ironic that it is the Linux distros that do not have new releases tested by end users until it is too late. Too few people try the Windows and Mac prerelease binaries, but at least they are there. 

It's not really that dangerous to do your own builds, just keep privat builds separate from the production environment and possibly skip the installation step -- R runs quite happily out of its build directory. Once the toolkits are in place, you can even run builds from a cron job and forget about them (until something breaks). 

Mark, one note: I'd keep the builddir completely separate from the srcdir, and not as a subdirectory. I.e. ../R/configure rather than ../configure. 

> 
> cheers,
>   Steve
> 
> On 9 November 2011 17:47, Mark Leeds <markleeds2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hello: I've included a txt file ( some day, when I have more time, I'll
>> turn it into latex )  that has the steps for installing R from source on
>> Fedora. It was
>> written only for people like myself who find these  tasks difficult.
>> 
>> Also, could someone from the R-Sig-Fedora list let me know if the txt file
>> was attached because I don't actually receive emails that I send to the
>> R-Sig-Fedora list. ( not sure why this is ? ).   If it doesn't go through,
>> I'll cut and paste and re-send it in the email itself. Thanks.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> _______________________________________________
> R-SIG-Fedora mailing list
> R-SIG-Fedora at r-project.org
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-fedora

-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com