Re: [R] Portable R?
My experiences parallel Dirk's - I also work for several financial institutions and large corporates, and probably 80% of them allow me to plug in a USB key and move files around. Yep, I find it strange too... Dave M. On 11/18/05, Dirk Eddelbuettel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 17 November 2005 at 07:37, Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > | I would be surprised to find a PC in a work environment that was bootable > | from USB or even from DVD/CD. Even in academia we have such things turned > | off (and it would be a disciplinary offence to run your own OS on > | a University-owned machine). > > Yes, though it really depends on how well organised and run a workplace is [ > having worked for a few different employers in financial services, I can > assure you that this varies significantly. ] But your point is spot-on, and > I should have mentioned it. E.g. at my current (well-run) workplace, USB > access is disabled (and we don't get admin rights). __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
Re: [R] Portable R?
Thanks guys, Dirk: I generally resort to using my laptop for R analysis, but it usually involves dragging loads of data multiple times between a customer system and my laptop. Moving large amounts of data in this fashion can be a problem, particularly when there's sensitivity issues about the data itself. I've used Quantian in the past, and I've customised my own Knoppix CDs, but ideally I'd like to run *my* tools (i.e. R) on *their* system so I'm not having to deal with the logistical and security issues that come with moving data around between systems. I didn't realise that the Windows version of R was "relocatable" that easily - I just assumed the install did something more complex than that. I'll try copying the R files to a USB key later today. Thanks again Dave M. On 11/17/05, Dirk Eddelbuettel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 17 November 2005 at 14:16, David Mitchell wrote: > | Hello list, > | > | A short time ago, I found > | http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/portable_apps_suite/, which > | contains basically a complete set of office tools that can be run > | *entirely* from a USB key. The concept is: > | - find a Windows PC > | - put in your USB key > | - run OpenOffice, Firefox, Gaim, Nvu, Thunderbird, ... directly from > | your USB key, with no app installation required > | - save your files wherever > | - remove your USB key and leave, with nothing installed on the original PC > | > | As a consultant who battles regularly with limited toolsets at > | customer sites, this strikes me as an extremely handy way of working. > | > | Has anyone managed to setup a base R configuration that runs entirely > | from USB key? Being a regular user, but no expert, with R, it'd be > | very helpful for me if such a mechanism existed, but I've got no idea > | where to begin in building such a thing. > > Short answer: > Yes but using Linux, requiring a larger USB stick and some fiddling. > > Longer answer: > Quantian (http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian) is a "everything, > the kitchen sink and some" Linux distribution running off a DVD. Quantian is > focussed on quantitative / numeric apps, and tends to include R plus related > goodies -- the last release had an almost complete set of CRAN and > BioConductor packages. The raw size of the last release is around 2 GB, > corresponding to 6.6 GB expanded. Marco Caliari, who often contributes > improved boot code to Quantian, has managed to boot Quantian off a USB > stick. I didn't manage to do that with my laptop, possibly because of > limitations in its bios. Some of this was discussed in past threads on the > quantian-general mailing list. > > Lots-o-work suggestion: > To not require a huge USB stick, you could try to shrink a given live > cdrom such as Knoppix or Ubuntu, then add R and other goodies such that > you're left with around 512 MB compressed. Then throw it onto a USB stick and > make it bootable. > > Shortcut: > Order a Quantian DVD. Some folks sell them pre-made for less than $5. > Experiment with that, If you like it, consider making your own mini-distro. > Or stick with the DVD and use it directly with the USB stick for your > configuration, data, demos, ... > > Even shorter: > R is perfectly "relocatable". If you install the Windows binary onto > the USB drive, it will run fine. You'll probably need to add editors and > other tools. > > Hope this helps, Dirk > > -- > Statistics: The (futile) attempt to offer certainty about uncertainty. > -- Roger Koenker, 'Dictionary of Received Ideas of Statistics' > __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
[R] Portable R?
Hello list, A short time ago, I found http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/portable_apps_suite/, which contains basically a complete set of office tools that can be run *entirely* from a USB key. The concept is: - find a Windows PC - put in your USB key - run OpenOffice, Firefox, Gaim, Nvu, Thunderbird, ... directly from your USB key, with no app installation required - save your files wherever - remove your USB key and leave, with nothing installed on the original PC As a consultant who battles regularly with limited toolsets at customer sites, this strikes me as an extremely handy way of working. Has anyone managed to setup a base R configuration that runs entirely from USB key? Being a regular user, but no expert, with R, it'd be very helpful for me if such a mechanism existed, but I've got no idea where to begin in building such a thing. Thanks in advance for any responses or suggestions Dave M. __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
[R] Tools for data preparation?
Hello list, I'm regularly in the position where I have to do a lot of data manipulation, in order to get the data I have into a format R is happy with. This manipulation would generally be in one of two forms: - getting data from e.g. text log files into a tabular format - extracting sensible sample data from a very large data set (i.e. too large for R to handle) In general, I use Perl or Python to do the task; I'm curious as to what others use when they hit the same problem. Regards Dave Mitchell __ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
Re: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software?
Hopefully my experience with R may add something to this discussion. I majored in computer science in 1983, with minors in mathematics and statistics. As this was in the days when computers were largely big centralised boxes with remote terminals, I didn't get to use computers for stats while I was at uni. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, and I've got to start "doing statistics" on the computer for the type of work I now do. A friend pointed me to R, so off I went. Between 1983 and then, I did a lot of development, testing, documentation, management, troubleshooting, etc work, so I think it's fair to say that, while my statistics knowledge needed a top up, my computing background was very strong. As of today, after approx 2 years of using R for relatively ad-hoc tasks every few weeks, here's my thoughts about it: - it's extremely powerful and well-maintained; kudos to everyone involved - it's extremely concise; you can do a huge amount of work in very few lines of code - provided a particular task is close to one I've already done before, using R I can extract info from a set of data at an amazing rate. Tasks that would take me an hour or so with another programming language or toolset, may take me under a minute using R (obviously depending on the size of the dataset) Problems arise whenever I need to step outside my existing R knowledge base, and use a feature or function that I haven't used before: - the help documentation in general desperately needs work, particularly the examples. My thinking is that examples should pretty much lead you through a trivial exercise using the tool being discussed. This is very rarely the case with R, and the examples seem to assume you fully understand how e.g. a library works and just need a simple reminder of the syntax. For the purposes of comparison, compare the documentation that comes with the Perl language; even if you don't know what a function or keyword does, you can pretty much read through the given examples and work it out without difficulty - the GUI is pretty much just a working area on the screen; it's just not "helpful". It would probably be reasonably simple to add menu or toolbar options to help a user identify how they can actually achieve a particular task in R (e.g. select a function from a drop-down list, and get one-liner documentation about what it does), but that hasn't been done. Many of the questions asked on this list (which are often answered with "RTFM") are of the nature "I've got this conceptually simple task to do, but I can't find out how to do it using R. Please help"; this is gratifying to me personally, since I frequently encounter the same problem. These issues are extremely frustrating, as you often know the answer will be a one-liner but you may struggle for hours or days trying to find it As I said above, once you understand how to do a particular task in R, you can leverage that knowledge to do similar tasks amazingly quickly; the productivity that comes with using R in this context is incredible. However, that productivity tends to disappear when you need to take even a small step outside your existing R knowledge base. Now maybe I'm the only occasional R user out here, and everyone else is using it 8 hours a day and acquired my 2 years' worth of knowledge in their first week of use. I doubt that is actually the case, and the rest of us could really do with some help from the GUI. Finally, please don't think I don't appreciate the mass of effort required to get R to its current state. I do, and it's made my life a lot easier than it would otherwise have been. Regards Dave Mitchell __ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
