[R-SIG-Mac]What is r-atlas?

[Jan de Leeuw]

ATLAS is a self-optimizing version of BLAS, the basic linear algebra
subroutines, which are the basic building blocks of much of the
linear algebra in R. Self-optimizing means that ATLAS, while
installing itself, does a large number of tests to find out
properties of your processor(s). It knows about Altivec (i.e.
it detects a G4) and it uses threading if it detects more than
one processor. It can make your linear algebra (solve, eigen,
and friends) much faster if R is linked with ATLAS instead
of the bundled BLAS.

Building ATLAS will take hours on most machines, but it is
well worth it.

r-atlas in fink will build a version of R linked with ATLAS, which
also sits in fink.

All binaries from CRAN and gifi are also linked with ATLAS, but
not necessarily an ATLAS optimized for your particular machine.

Let me take the opportunity to recommend everybody to upgrade
to 10.2 or even 10.2.1 -- it does make quite a bit of difference in
speed, and in the available tools, and everybody is now developing
for 10.2.

On Wednesday, October 30, 2002, at 09:13 PM, David J. Braden wrote:

> Hi,
> Thanks to recent threads here and a *lot* of help from Jan, I am  
> learning how to set up my Mac (OS 10.1.5) to run R w/ XFree86.  I'm  
> finking my way along a steep learning curve, have managed to get up to  
> version 1.5.1-1 through fink update-all.
>
> (1) fink list "r-*" reveals file r-atlas.  Should I install that in  
> addition to r-base and r-recommended?
>
> (2) I have been seeing "atlas" crop up in other places.  Does it have  
> a special significance within Unix?
>
> Thanks to you all.
> Regards,
> Dave Braden
>
> On Tuesday, October 29, 2002, at 01:45  AM, David J. Braden wrote:
>
>> I agree with Stefan: the thread with Jean-Pierre, Don and Jan proved  
>> a big help to me as well.  Thanks to that thread I was able to  
>> bootstrap my Mac into what I think is a working system (with OS-X  
>> 10.1.5, XDarwin, OroborOSX, etc.).  I can run the compiled version of  
>> R 1.6.0 just fine, but when I run R from a terminal session,  
>> executing demo(), I am getting version 1.4.1  (2002-01-30), in spite  
>> of latest fink update. Further, sometimes when I run it, output  
>> scrolls to the terminal window to a hilighted (END) followed by my  
>> cursor.  Is this normal?
>>
>> Sorry for this; I'm trying, really I am...
>>
>> TIA
>> Dave Braden
>>
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>>
>
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===
Jan de Leeuw; Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of Statistics;
Editor: Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Journal of Statistical  
Software
US mail: 9432 Boelter Hall, Box 951554, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554
phone (310)-825-9550;  fax (310)-206-5658;  email: deleeuw@stat.ucla.edu
homepage: http://gifi.stat.ucla.edu
   
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