[R] Ubuntu, Revolutions, R

[Ista Zahn]

I'm a fellow (K)Ubuntu user, although I'm waiting for KK to be
released before upgrading. I just wanted to point out that presumably
this advertisement can be avoided by installing R as instructed at
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/ rather than using Ubuntu's
version. I usually do this anyway because it's usually more
up-to-date.

-Ista

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 9:38 AM, David M Smith
<david at revolution-computing.com> wrote:
> Andrew is correct: the upcoming release of Ubuntu (Karmic Koala) will
> feature the REvolution R distribution. (I am a REvolution Computing
> employee.) Our developers have been working with Canonical's
> representatives over the past several months to upgrade R in Ubuntu to
> 2.9.2 and to include the REvolution R extensions.
>
>> My question(s) for the community is this (pick any question(s) you like to
>> answer:
>>        Should I install the REvolution Computing packages?
>>        Do these packages really make R faster?
>>        Are these packages stable?
>>        What are your experiences with REvolution Computing software?
>
> Whether you install the REvolution Computing packages is up to you.
> When you upgrade to KK, the only change made to stock R is the
> .Rprofile.site file, adding the message about how to install the
> extensions. (You can edit the .Rprofile.site file if you prefer.)
>
> If you do install the extensions, no changes are made to the core R
> language (it is 100% compatible with stock R). R will be linked to
> multi-threaded math libraries, which will improve performance for some
> mathematical operations (particularly on a multi-core system, where
> more than 1 processor will be used). So you should expect it to make R
> faster.
>
> Installing the extensions also installs some additional packages from
> REvolution Computing, including foreach and iterators, and Simon
> Urbanek's multicore package from CRAN. The REvolution packages have
> been in use for over a year, and are very stable. In any case they are
> not attached by default. But if you do load these packages, you can
> use the "foreach" function to parallelize loops, making R run faster
> on multicore systems.
>
> I'll leave others to speak of their experiences of REvolution
> Computing software (our contributions to the community include the
> packages nws, foreach, iterators, doSNOW and doMC and REvolution R
> itself). But from my personal perspective, I'm proud to have been able
> to extend awareness and use of R to new domains, and to improve the
> performance of R for many users.
>
> # David Smith
> Director of Community, REvolution Computing
>
> On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 8:40 PM, Andrew Choens <andy.choens at gmail.com> wrote:
>> For those who don't follow Ubuntu development carefully, the first Beta for the
>> next Ubuntu was recently released, so I took my home system and upgraded to
>> help out with filing bugs, etc.
>>
>> Just to be clear, I am not looking for help with the upgrade process. I've had
>> R, and a few miscellaneous CRAN packages installed on this computer for years.
>> Today, when I loaded an R session I had developed before the upgrade, I saw
>> something new in my R "welcome message".
>>>
>>>R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24)
>>>Copyright (C) 2009 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
>>>ISBN 3-900051-07-0
>>>
>>>R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
>>>You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
>>>Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.
>>>
>>>R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
>>>Type 'contributors()' for more information and
>>>'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.
>>>
>>>
>>>This is REvolution R version 3.0.0:
>>>the optimized distribution of R from REvolution Computing.
>>>REvolution R enhancements Copyright (C) REvolution Computing, Inc.
>>>
>>>Checking for REvolution MKL:
>>  >- REvolution R enhancements not installed.
>>>For improved performance and other extensions: apt-get install revolution-r
>>
>> The last part, about this being the "enhanced" version of R was . . .
>> unexpected.  I have heard of this company before and now I've spent some time
>> on their website. Looking at my installation, Ubuntu did not install any of
>> the REvolution Computing components, although R now basically thows a warning
>> every time I start it.
>>
>> My question(s) for the community is this (pick any question(s) you like to
>> answer:
>>        Should I install the REvolution Computing packages?
>>        Do these packages really make R faster?
>>        Are these packages stable?
>>        What are your experiences with REvolution Computing software?
>>
>> I am interested in hearing from members of the community, REvolution Computing
>> employees/supporters (although please ID yourself as such) and most anyone
>> else. I can see what they say on their website, but I'm interested in getting
>> other opinions too.
>>
>> Thanks!
>
> --
> David M Smith <david at revolution-computing.com>
> Director of Community, REvolution Computing www.revolution-computing.com
> Tel: +1 (206) 577-4778 x3203 (San Francisco, USA)
>
> Check out our upcoming events schedule at www.revolution-computing.com/events
>
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>



-- 
Ista Zahn
Graduate student
University of Rochester
Department of Clinical and Social Psychology
http://yourpsyche.org