Very useful discussion, and I think it is relevant for r-sig-macin many regards.
Not the least, it offers new users, whatever background, information on the different options on installing R. I think it would be a very useful thing to add these installation methods to the CRAN page as they definitely have their merits - specifically when dealing with spatial data and GDAL versions and updates, and consistency of using the same GDAL. In contrast to others, I had bad experiences with mixed installations - especially gdal. At the very least, it creates situations, where it is quite difficult to understand which gdal version is used. I would therefore always recommend to stick to one installation method - MacPorts, homebrew, Fink or standard / frameworks. Unfortunately, the resources of installing R under homebrew are scattered around - not the least, because there is no home for an “official” and “supported” method. Cheers, Rainer > On 21 Oct 2017, at 14:47, clark richards <clark.richa...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Interesting discussion, even if it is technically off-topic (i.e. is about > a Macports issue rather than an R issue). > > For myself, I have found instances where I needed to install R through > non-standard channels (my choice lately has been homebrew). This was > largely related to having the required system tools necessary for a package > development environment that permits the compilation of C/fortran code and > some system libraries (gdal, etc). As Don and others pointed out many such > dependencies should be available through the OSX R develop page (forget the > address right now ...), I have some older machines for which those > precompiled binaries do not install, including a 9 year old Macbook which > will run OSX up to ElCapitan but is not compatible with the newer binaries. > In that case, in order to have an R and gfortran that played together I had > to use homebrew as I could not find a binary gfortran that would work for > my architecture. > > I love working on OSX, though I have often lamented the difficulties in > getting a suitable package development environment configured -- at least > compared to Windows (just install Rtools.exe) and Linux (everything > required is easily installed from the distro package manager). > > Clark > > >> Message: 2 >> Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:02:33 +0000 >> From: "MacQueen, Don" <macque...@llnl.gov> >> To: David Winsemius <dwinsem...@comcast.net>, Rainer Krug >> <rainer_k...@icloud.com> >> Cc: John <miao...@gmail.com>, "r-sig-mac@r-project.org" >> <r-sig-mac@r-project.org> >> Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Macports installation problem >> Message-ID: <303cd3a3-230a-4d18-a190-e6c2d1160...@llnl.gov> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> >> The OP's question has inspired an interestingly large number of responses. >> >> One thing I'm curious about, and I don't think I've seen in the >> discussion, is why the OP needed to install Cairo graphics with respect to >> R (otherwise the question was indeed off-topic for R-sig-Mac). >> >> In summary (and I think this is reasonably consistent with other >> responses; discussion to support my summary follows): >> >> 1) Use CRAN R, install dependencies needed for extended R capability on >> the OS as needed, from whatever source you prefer, or whichever is easiest >> for R to use >> 2) If one chooses to install R using MacPorts or homebrew, be prepared to >> exercise a greater depth of computer science smarts >> 3) Feel free to install other useful stuff using MacPorts or homebrew, >> whichever one prefers; there is unlikely to be any conflict with R >> >> >> In close to 20 years of using R on Mac, I have always been able to use >> whatever capabilities R offers that I wanted to use, using the R provided >> on CRAN. Nothing has ever motivated me to install R using MacPorts or >> homebrew in order to obtain some capability that I couldn't have using >> CRAN's binary download for Mac. This includes things like access to remote >> Oracle databases, using various spatial packages built around sp and rgdal, >> reading and writing MS Office files (both Word and Excel), building simple >> tcl/tk interfaces, writing my own packages that link to Fortran, and >> probably more that I don't remember. I see no necessity to install R from >> MacPorts or homebrew. Of course, if one wishes to for whatever reason, >> great! And I'm glad that people have wanted to make R available from those >> package managers. >> >> I do use MacPorts, however, to get useful software such as an X Windows >> aware version of emacs, ghostscript, and ImageMagick. Indeed, I even have >> cairo installed using MacPorts, albeit on a 10.11.6 system, not a 10.12.x >> system like the OP. (It's probably there as a dependency for some other >> MacPorts package.) From that point of view, the OP's command to install it >> using MacPorts was correct. I'd need more information to make a guess at >> why it didn't succeed. >> >> Some R packages do, of course, depend on external libraries not provided >> with R. One has to install these from somewhere. For example, the spatial >> packages need GDAL. In this case, I use the KyngChaos frameworks, but I'm >> aware that they're also available from MacPorts (and probably homebrew as >> well). Could I use them instead? Probably; R is pretty good about letting >> the user specify where dependencies are found. >> >> I do not know what R extended capability depends on installing Cairo >> graphics on the OS. The X11() graphics device, as provided (I believe), has >> a version that uses cairo. There is the Cairo R package, but it has a >> binary version, at least for R on 10.11.x, so there's no need to install >> Cairo graphics to install the Cairo package. >> >> -Don >> >> -- >> Don MacQueen >> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory >> 7000 East Ave., L-627 >> Livermore, CA 94550 >> 925-423-1062 >> Lab cell 925-724-7509 >> >> >> > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > _______________________________________________ > R-SIG-Mac mailing list > R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac -- Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany) University of Zürich Cell: +41 (0)78 630 66 57 email: rai...@krugs.de Skype: RMkrug PGP: 0x0F52F982
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