[R] installing R on debian linux

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On Sat, Nov 02, 2002 at 03:29:49PM +1300, Corrin Lakeland wrote:
> On Sat, 02 Nov 2002 13:52, Chris Lawrence wrote:
> > If you're running Woody, I'd use the packages on CRAN, since they're
> > more up-to-date than the ones shipped in woody; with sarge or sid, use
> > the packages in unstable.
> 
> I disagree.  If a user chooses to run woody/stable, it is because they 
> want stable software that isn't changing frequently.  If they want 
> something more up to date then they'd be running sarge.  If they want a 
> stable system with a more up to date version of R, then I think they're 
> better off using debian's pinning feature to use the R from testing or 
> unstable rather than the one from CRAN.  Using pinning gives the 
> benefit of having a close mirror, and guarantees dependancies can be 
> satisfied.

It all depends. Some people may just want "stable for almost everything but
very current for a few key apps". For R, using CRAN is easier to administer
(one line in apt's sources.list) than setting up pinning (which is nice for
advanced users).  A third option is to compile locally which can be as easy
as saying 
   $ apt-get --compile source r-base 
(provided you have sources listed for apt too, and the Built-Depends don't
bite).

As this is somewhat off-topic, maybe we should create an R SIG for Debian.
Might also a good idea for the Mac-heads who compete with us Debianistas for
the largest number of not generally useful postings...

Dirk

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