[R-SIG-Mac] Transitioning from Mac to LInux?

[Simon Urbanek]

Carl,

I would argue that you won't really gain anything - if you use R the Linux-way (build R from sources), it would be the same on macOS and Linux - and some people do that. So for R I don't think there is a difference. I'm using Linux for everything other than my desktop/laptop and the main reason I'm sticking with macOS at the edge is the availability of software for dealing with the rest of the world (MS Office, Adobe, Apple Mail etc.). If you don't need any of it, then you may be happy with Linux. The biggest issue there tends to be setting up your machine as the hardware support is far less streamlined than on macOS. Some of my friends are running Linux on Mac hardware - but you need the be real expert for that.

Cheers,
Simon


> On 2/04/2020, at 7:48 AM, Carl Witthoft <carl using witthoft.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> If I should ask over at r-sig-debian instead of here, please tell me. I don't wish to clog r-sig-mac with off-topic stuff.
> 
> 
> I've been watching the massive headaches people are dealing with trying to keep R fully compatible with each MacOS X upgrade,  I'm wondering whether replacing my iMac (2009) with a new Mac really makes sense from an R - user point of view, as opposed to getting some inexpensive desktop and installing Linux.  I know I can run R and RStudio under Linux, for example,  but don't know what limitations, if any there are when it comes to building packages from source, getting compatible compilers,  and so on.
> 
> What have some of you 'power R users' discovered when/if you tried to build , or incorporate Bioconductor or other repository's packages under Linux?
> 
> 
> -- 
> Carl Witthoft
> carl using witthoft.com
> resume: https://app.box.com/file/498153801347
> 
> _______________________________________________
> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
> R-SIG-Mac using r-project.org
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac