[R] Failure of update.packages()

[plummer@iarc.fr]

Quoting Jari Oksanen <jarioksa at sun3.oulu.fi>:

> On Thu, 2005-02-10 at 13:52 +0100, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> > I M S White <iwhite at staffmail.ed.ac.uk> writes:
> >
> > > Can anyone explain why with latest version of R (2.0.1) on FC3, installed
> > > from R-2.0.1-0.fdr.2.fc3.i386.rpm, update.packages() produces the message
> > >
> > > /usr/lib/R/bin/Rcmd exec: INSTALL: not found.
> > >
> > > Indeed /usr/lib/R/bin seems to lack various shell scripts (INSTALL,
> > > REMOVE, etc).
>
> > You need to install the R-devel package too:
> > 1
> > R-devel-2.0.1-0.fdr.2.fc3.i386.rpm
> >
> > The big idea is that this will suck in all the required compilers,
> > libraries, and include files via RPM dependencies, but users with
> > limited disk space may be content with the binaries of R+recommended
> > packages.
> >
> This kind of problems were to be anticipated, weren't they? The great
> divide between use-only and devel packages is a rpm packaging standard,
> but not very useful in this case: it splits a 568K devel chip from a
> 15.4M chunk of base R. Moreover, you don't have a repository of binary
> packages for Linux which means that not many people can use the 568K
> saving in download times (saving in disk space is more considerable of
> course). So are there plans for binary Linux packages for other distros
> than Debian so that people could use the non-devel piece of R only?
>
> cheers, jari oksanen

The splitting is an experiment (and I said so when I announced it).
It does have unforseen consequences, like implicating me in maintaining a
repository of binary RPMs for CRAN packages, which I'm not particularly keen
on.

So I shall probably revert to a single RPM, and force the installation
requirements to be the same as the build requirements.  This was, in fact,
Peter's suggestion which shows that not everybody is as short-sighted as me.

Martyn