Really odd to know what to say to this Paul, always a challenge to know
how to mix the personal/human and the technological on techno lists.
Well, I'm way too old to be a boy scout. I've been using R for about 13
years I think, S+ before that, SAS and SPSS (ugh) before that. About 25
years ago I wrote my own little stats package in dBaseII on a CP/M
"portable". I've used Linux, including compiling programs and kernels,
for about 15 years but I don't pretend to be great programmer. I'm just
trying to use update.packages() on top of a main install from the superb
Ubuntu repositories and don't really understand what's happening.
Next time I'll simply ask:
"Does anyone else try to do this?"
"If so, do you get the same or different results?"
"If different, am I doing something differently or wrongly?"
I'll return to the issues when I get back from a much needed week off!
Thanks to you and all,
C
Paul Johnson sent the following at 06/08/12 06:06:
OK. Can people help clarify this?
OK, I can feel myself going into long-winded professor mode. After
this, I'm done on this topic.
The answer is "its just a matter of taste." What do you think is
fun/interesting about running Linux and using R? Did you ever compile
the Linux kernel? I have. What an adventure. Can you write programs?
Do you want to learn how? You'll have to compile programs,
eventually. But maybe you aren't interested in that, maybe you just
want to "use" R and the packages other people prepare, in which case a
lot of the OS mumbo-jumbo is off to the side. If there is a Debian
package repository, use it. Your time is better spent at learning to
use Emacs with ESS to develop R code than it is on compiling the R
packages that you will use. I think that's almost certainly true. if
the packages exist on a repository, that is.
If you were an MS Windows user, the chances would be good that you'd
never have to compile an R package because the CRAN has a setup that
builds all packages and makes them available for download on Windows.
If there were only one Linux distribution, I expect they would do it
for Linux as well. It is possible to compile packages for yourself on
Windows. Duncan Murdoch assembled a large collection of compilers and
other build tools called RTools (see
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows). I installed it a few months
ago. It is like a tiny collection of all the best Unix/Linux programs
assembled in a collection for Windows systems. Quite awesome. I
suppose, if I used Windows, I'd want t o build my own packages, but
I'd only do that so I wouldn't feel so much like I was using Windows.
The Debian "official" repositories (or whatever distribution) can't
possibly stay up to date on 1000s of R packages. They don't even try.
I don't even try anymore.* They provide deb packages for some R
packages, maybe 100s of the most likely ones. Some programmers try to
help users by providing their own unofficial repositories that include
more or newer Debian packages of R stuff. That's where the PPA
archives come into play. The PPA thing is a Ubuntu terminology, an
effort to streamline your installation and use of Debian packages that
are not yet in the official repository.. Those repositories reflect
a tremendous amount of work. If you and I decided "we wish package XYZ
had a Debian version," we could build the package and then host our
own repository. Since our packages are from Chris and Paul, and not
the official Ubuntu team, they aren't in the distribution, but we
could make them available for people to use.
Should use choose to use the deb packages from whatever repo or should
you compile your own? As I said in the start of this thread, I'd say
to my students, "keep fighting, eventually you will learn about how to
do this and you will be smarter as a result." A couple of the package
managers have written that I'm encouraging folks like you to waste
your time. They say "just use the deb packages. That is what they are
there for." I can understand why they feel that way. They went to the
trouble of building it.
I encourage people to learn to compile packages because I think it is
fun. It is educational. You learn about software development. I was a
"boy scout". Someday, you will want to use an R package for which
nobody has built a distribution-specific package. So you might as
well be prepared for that day and get comfortable with compiling
things. The Gentoo LInux distribution takes that philosophy to its
logical conclusion, and it tries to make users re-compile every
package on their operating system. Not just R-related packages.
Everything. That's too hardcore for me. The last time I compiled gcc
took almost a full day. But, if I were stranded on an island with a
computer and the gcc source code, I could eventually build a compiler,
and there's some satisfaction in that.
So find out what you think is fun, and do that :)
pj
* In 2001 or so, the R package repository was small enough that I
could have my lab PC's build every package and stay up to date. By
2003, I noticed that the R package update would start at 5pm and still
be going when I came for work. After that, I had to drop my "build
everything" commitment and started a list of packages I'll always
install.
Thanks again Paul and John,
Chris
--
Chris Evans <ch...@psyctc.org> Skype: chris-psyctc
Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy, Notts. PDD network;
Professor, Psychotherapy, Nottingham University
*If I am writing from one of those roles, it will be clear. Otherwise*
*my views are my own and not representative of those institutions *
If you have difficulty Emailing me on this address or getting a reply,
send again but cc to: chris dot evans at nottshc dot nhs dot uk
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--
Chris Evans <ch...@psyctc.org> Skype: chris-psyctc
Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy, Notts. PDD network;
Professor, Psychotherapy, Nottingham University
*If I am writing from one of those roles, it will be clear. Otherwise*
*my views are my own and not representative of those institutions *
If you have difficulty Emailing me on this address or getting a reply,
send again but cc to: chris dot evans at nottshc dot nhs dot uk
and to: c dot evans at nottingham dot ac dot uk
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