Re: [ESS] [External] [R-win] Difficulty installing R packages under Windows 11 / Cygwin

[Martin Maechler via ESS-help]

As R core and ESS core  I still have never tried to install ESS under Windows.
Just last week installed not only R for Windows (binary from CRAN) +
Rtools43 (by Tomas, from CRAN) and was able to install my Rmpfr
package (C code + external lib) *from source* -- again
thanks to Tomas Kalibera's  excellent  Rtools.
However, for Emacs & ESS,  I have always used the Windows port of
Emacs+ESS+Auctex+..  by Vincent Goulet (Canada)
which now resides here  https://emacs-modified.gitlab.io/
For me it's absolutely crucial and nicely working, also allowing
M-x R-[Tab]   get a list of my dozen different R versions all
installed in our (Terminal Server) Windows version.

Martin

On Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 9:42 PM Richard M. Heiberger via ESS-help
 wrote:
>
> my initial reaction is that you are trying to hard.  I haven't paid serious 
> attention to Windows since
> I switched to Mac about 10 years ago.
>
> What I recall is that all the unix utilities (sh, awk, grep, etc) that you 
> need are included in the
> Rtools collection.  Indeed they are exactly the cygwin utilities.  I know 
> that I stopped bothering
> with cygwin itself once I meade that realization.  Then, since all the unix 
> functions are distributed by
> R, you know that they are fully compatible.  I used the CRAN distibuted 
> Windows binary for R.
>
> Rich
>
> > On Dec 2, 2023, at 12:59, Sparapani, Rodney via ESS-help 
> >  wrote:
> >
> > Hi Robert:
> >
> > Would they allow dual-booting?  I’m not saying that you can’t get ESS
> > to work under Cygwin.  On the contrary, it did work at one time so
> > it certainly can be done.  However, that is not currently supported
> > so you are on your own.  But, perhaps there are others in the same
> > straight-jacket here on ess-help that might be willing to help?
> > Please speak up if so!
> >
> > In regards to WSL, that came out after I permanently switched
> > to macOS.  But, I think it is worth a try too.  Since you will be
> > running pure Linux binaries, then it might work out of the box.
> > And maybe there are more people here interested in WSL than
> > Cygwin.  Also, the more recent WSL 2 (released in 2019) sounds
> > like it is more compatible than WSL 1 (released in 2016).
> >
> > --
> > Rodney Sparapani, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, He/Him/His
> > Vice President, Wisconsin Chapter of the American Statistical Association
> > Institute for Health and Equity, Division of Biostatistics
> > Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Campus
> >
> > From: Robert Lerche 
> > Date: Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 11:40 AM
> > To: Sparapani, Rodney , Tomas Kalibera 
> > 
> > Subject: RE: [R-win] Difficulty installing R packages under Windows 11 / 
> > Cygwin
> > ATTENTION: This email originated from a sender outside of MCW. Use caution 
> > when clicking on links or opening attachments.
> > 
> > Thanks for your thoughtful reply.  Alas, I am using a company-provided 
> > laptop.  I would much prefer to run Linux as I do on my personal system but 
> > that is not in the cards.  I have plenty of access to Linux servers and of 
> > course I can run things there but it’s a bit inconvenient.
> >
> > I thought about using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). I have some 
> > experience with early versions of that [which leads me to avoid it  ].
> >
> > It is my fate to cope with legacy junk on projects that were late when I 
> > joined. Ah well it’s a living.
> >
> > From: Sparapani, Rodney 
> > Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2023 9:28 AM
> > To: Robert Lerche ; Tomas Kalibera 
> > ; ess-help (ess-help@r-project.org) 
> > 
> > Subject: Re: [R-win] Difficulty installing R packages under Windows 11 / 
> > Cygwin
> >
> >
> > [EXTERNAL MESSAGE] Be mindful when clicking links or attachments
> > Hi Robert:
> >
> > There was a time when we supported ESS under Cygwin.
> > In other words, run elisp code assuming UNIX/Linux rather
> > than Windows even though Windows is the OS.  However,
> > that was a long time ago: at least 10 years since I last tried it.
> > Cygwin has largely fallen out of fashion since you can now so
> > easily install Ubuntu on typical hardware: something that
> > has markedly improved since 2013.  Therefore, I would not
> > expect Cygwin support to work out of the box since there
> > has been no recent testing.  Also, Windows is not very
> > popular with R users since there is no forking support
> > for the parallel package.  So switching to Linux is well
> > worth it.  I used to run Windows inside VirtualBox when
> > I needed to do PC stuff like Office and iTunes
> > (before switching to macOS and never looking back ;o)
> >
> > --
> > Rodney Sparapani, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, He/Him/His
> > Vice President, Wisconsin Chapter of the American Statistical Association
> > Institute for Health and Equity, Division of Biostatistics
> > Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Campus
> >
> > From: ESS-bugs 
> > mailto:mailman-boun...@stat.ethz.ch>> on 
> > behalf of Robert 

Re: [ESS] [External] [R-win] Difficulty installing R packages under Windows 11 / Cygwin

[Richard M. Heiberger via ESS-help]

my initial reaction is that you are trying to hard.  I haven't paid serious 
attention to Windows since
I switched to Mac about 10 years ago.

What I recall is that all the unix utilities (sh, awk, grep, etc) that you need 
are included in the
Rtools collection.  Indeed they are exactly the cygwin utilities.  I know that 
I stopped bothering
with cygwin itself once I meade that realization.  Then, since all the unix 
functions are distributed by
R, you know that they are fully compatible.  I used the CRAN distibuted Windows 
binary for R.

Rich

> On Dec 2, 2023, at 12:59, Sparapani, Rodney via ESS-help 
>  wrote:
>
> Hi Robert:
>
> Would they allow dual-booting?  I’m not saying that you can’t get ESS
> to work under Cygwin.  On the contrary, it did work at one time so
> it certainly can be done.  However, that is not currently supported
> so you are on your own.  But, perhaps there are others in the same
> straight-jacket here on ess-help that might be willing to help?
> Please speak up if so!
>
> In regards to WSL, that came out after I permanently switched
> to macOS.  But, I think it is worth a try too.  Since you will be
> running pure Linux binaries, then it might work out of the box.
> And maybe there are more people here interested in WSL than
> Cygwin.  Also, the more recent WSL 2 (released in 2019) sounds
> like it is more compatible than WSL 1 (released in 2016).
>
> --
> Rodney Sparapani, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, He/Him/His
> Vice President, Wisconsin Chapter of the American Statistical Association
> Institute for Health and Equity, Division of Biostatistics
> Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Campus
>
> From: Robert Lerche 
> Date: Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 11:40 AM
> To: Sparapani, Rodney , Tomas Kalibera 
> 
> Subject: RE: [R-win] Difficulty installing R packages under Windows 11 / 
> Cygwin
> ATTENTION: This email originated from a sender outside of MCW. Use caution 
> when clicking on links or opening attachments.
> 
> Thanks for your thoughtful reply.  Alas, I am using a company-provided 
> laptop.  I would much prefer to run Linux as I do on my personal system but 
> that is not in the cards.  I have plenty of access to Linux servers and of 
> course I can run things there but it’s a bit inconvenient.
>
> I thought about using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). I have some 
> experience with early versions of that [which leads me to avoid it  ].
>
> It is my fate to cope with legacy junk on projects that were late when I 
> joined. Ah well it’s a living.
>
> From: Sparapani, Rodney 
> Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2023 9:28 AM
> To: Robert Lerche ; Tomas Kalibera 
> ; ess-help (ess-help@r-project.org) 
> 
> Subject: Re: [R-win] Difficulty installing R packages under Windows 11 / 
> Cygwin
>
>
> [EXTERNAL MESSAGE] Be mindful when clicking links or attachments
> Hi Robert:
>
> There was a time when we supported ESS under Cygwin.
> In other words, run elisp code assuming UNIX/Linux rather
> than Windows even though Windows is the OS.  However,
> that was a long time ago: at least 10 years since I last tried it.
> Cygwin has largely fallen out of fashion since you can now so
> easily install Ubuntu on typical hardware: something that
> has markedly improved since 2013.  Therefore, I would not
> expect Cygwin support to work out of the box since there
> has been no recent testing.  Also, Windows is not very
> popular with R users since there is no forking support
> for the parallel package.  So switching to Linux is well
> worth it.  I used to run Windows inside VirtualBox when
> I needed to do PC stuff like Office and iTunes
> (before switching to macOS and never looking back ;o)
>
> --
> Rodney Sparapani, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, He/Him/His
> Vice President, Wisconsin Chapter of the American Statistical Association
> Institute for Health and Equity, Division of Biostatistics
> Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Campus
>
> From: ESS-bugs 
> mailto:mailman-boun...@stat.ethz.ch>> on behalf 
> of Robert Lerche 
> mailto:rler...@pacificbiosciences.com>>
> Date: Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 11:04 AM
> To: Tomas Kalibera 
> mailto:tomas.kalib...@gmail.com>>, 
> ess-b...@r-project.org 
> mailto:ess-b...@r-project.org>>
> Cc: ess-bugs-ow...@r-project.org 
> mailto:ess-bugs-ow...@r-project.org>>, 
> r-wind...@r-project.org 
> mailto:r-wind...@r-project.org>>
> Subject: RE: [R-win] Difficulty installing R packages under Windows 11 / 
> Cygwin
> ATTENTION: This email originated from a sender outside of MCW. Use caution 
> when clicking on links or opening attachments.
> 
>
> Let me try raw text:
>
> Tomas, my thanks for your prompt and useful response. I followed your 
> instructions and the Windows (MinGW/MSYS2) R and ggplot2 of course work 
> perfectly well launched from a Cygwin bash shell.  Alas,