[R-sig-teaching] installing Rcmdr

[Ista Zahn]

I've found the version of R in the Ubuntu repository is almost always
out of date. Here is the process I follow:

1) Add the R repository (see http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/).
2) Install R and the dev package: sudo apt-get install r-base r-base-dev
3) Install any packages needed to build a particular package. In this
case something like sudo apt-get build-dep r-cran-rcmdr (I'm not on my
ubuntu machine at the moment so I'm not sure the package name is
correct).
4) Start R from the command line as root so I can install packages
system-wide: sudo R
5) From the R command prompt, install Rcmdr: >
install.packages("Rcmdr", dep=TRUE)
6) Start Rcmdr and install additional packages when prompted.

I've never had this procedure fail to produce a working installation.

Hope it helps,
Ista


On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Robert W. Hayden <hayden at mv.mv.com> wrote:
>
> Last weekend I visited my sister and her husband and installed R on
> their Ubuntu 8.04 machine and tried to add Rcmdr.  I had endless
> trouble most of which seemed to be because R (or Rcmdr) seemed to want
> a Fortran compiler (or a Fortran-to-C translator).  A smaller number
> of error mesages (out of many pages thereof) were removed by
> installing what appeared to be a library of Fortran linear algebra
> routines (lblas?).  Even then Rcmdr complained about missing packages
> when I ran it, and though it offered to install them, the installation
> failed in every case, with no useful error messages.
>
> I have installed R and Rcmdr many times before to Windows and various
> Linux distributions (it's on this Debian right now)  and never had so
> much trouble.  Did I do something wrong?  Is there a problem with R on
> Ubuntu?  I have programmed in Fortran so I don't mind adding a
> compiler and I've taught linear algebra so I don't mind adding linear
> algebra routines, but there is no way my students would ever figure
> out that was needed.  I also noted that Rcmdr had a MUCH longer list
> of dependencies than I remember.  All of this has me worried about
> using R in an introductory course for folks who are not computer
> science majors.
>
> Has anyone encountered a similar problem?  I used whatever version of
> R is in the Ubuntu repository.  I seem to remember 2.4 though that
> seems a bit old.
>
> ------->  First-time AP Stats. teacher?  Help is on the way! See
>
>  http://courses.ncssm.edu/math/Stat_Inst/Stats2007/Bob%20Hayden/Relief.html
>
>  Robert W. Hayden in the old library at  212 Main Street (P. O. Box 450)
>  North Troy, VT 05859  phone (802) 988-2587  web site http://statland.org/
>  email  bob statland.org  (add your own "@" and save me some spam)
>
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