[R-sig-teaching] installing Rcmdr

[John Fox]

Dear Jay, Bob, Ista,

I, too, have installed Rcmdr on Ubuntu systems several times with no
problems. I suspect that r-base-dev wasn't installed and that Ista's
procedure will produce the desired result.

Ista: Do you mind if I add your procedure, slightly edited and with credit,
to the Rcmdr installation page? Step 6, however, shouldn't be necessary
after installing with dep=TRUE, nor, I think, should step 3, since there's
only R code in the Rcmdr package.

Regards,
 John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-sig-teaching-bounces at r-project.org
[mailto:r-sig-teaching-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Ista Zahn
> Sent: February-14-09 11:12 PM
> To: bob at statland.org
> Cc: R-sig-teaching
> Subject: Re: [R-sig-teaching] installing Rcmdr
> 
> 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 out of date.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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-sig-teaching-bounces at r-project.org
[mailto:r-sig-teaching-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of G. Jay Kerns
> Sent: February-14-09 9:55 PM
> To: bob at statland.org
> Cc: R-sig-teaching
> Subject: Re: [R-sig-teaching] installing Rcmdr
> 
> Dear Robert,
> 
> 
> 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)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > R-sig-teaching at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching
> >
> 
> 
> I am and have been using Rcmdr on Ubuntu 7.10, 8.04, and currently on
> 8.10.  I used 32 bit Ubuntu for 7.10 and 8.04, but on 8.10 I am using
> both 32 and 64 bit versions. For the record, I have had no problems
> whatsoever installing Rcmdr.
> 
> First thought (and you didn't mention): are you sure that you have the
> r-base-dev Ubuntu package installed?  If you do not have that
> installed, then you won't be able to build _anything_.
> 
> If you already have r-base-dev....? it is good practice to install the
> packages from the repository with Synaptic (which it sounds like is
> what you did), since in those cases, dependencies are marked
> automatically for installation most of the time.    Another thing that
> you could try is to right-click on packages in Synaptic - it gives
> other packages "suggested" for installation.  In some cases,
> installing these extra packages helped me with installation problems
> elsewhere, too.
> 
> And you could consider contacting John Fox directly.  He's great about
> responding quickly, thoughtfully, and accurately.
> 
> Good luck.
> Jay
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ***************************************************
> G. Jay Kerns, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Department of Mathematics & Statistics
> Youngstown State University
> Youngstown, OH 44555-0002 USA
> Office: 1035 Cushwa Hall
> Phone: (330) 941-3310 Office (voice mail)
> -3302 Department
> -3170 FAX
> E-mail: gkerns at ysu.edu
> http://www.cc.ysu.edu/~gjkerns/
> 
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