R SIG Debian - Jul 2010 - OT: Problems updating OS to deal with fading R support for Ubuntu Hardy Heron...

Evening folks:

Not sure where this fits into the picture so bear with me for a few
moments while I think out loud to lay out the particulars of my problem.

-would love to be employed using R for a living but so far I have just
worked with it on my home machine to develop a basic level of skill with
it.
-I run Ubuntu linux 8.04 LTS on a machine with a 2.5GHz Celeron
processor and 1.2GB of memory. The Heron runs sprightly enough to suit
on that combination.
-noted on Cran that with the intro of the newest LTS edition, Lucid
Lynx, support for the Heron is continued on suffrage only.
-So, I tried to upgrade. Tried both Kubuntu and Ubuntu. Kubuntu dialled
out and connected to my ISP but failed to get anywhere after
authentication, Ubuntu failed to recognize my 3.5" A drive, and they
were both unbelievably sluggish on my system so out they both go and I'm
in the process of getting things set back up the way I had them with
8.04.

I realize this more OS than R, but I thought someone in the group might
have some ideas or suggestions they'd care to share, off-list of course.
Is there a way around this situation that doesn't involve huge outlays
in new hardware? Is there another flavour of Linux that would work with
my system and allow me to maintain a toe hold in the R camp so that I've
got it as a marketable skill somewhere down the road? Any thoughts would
be appreciated.

Regards...
-- 
Brian Lunergan
Nepean, Ontario
Canada

On 4 July 2010 at 19:33, Brian Lunergan wrote:
| Evening folks:
| 
| Not sure where this fits into the picture so bear with me for a few
| moments while I think out loud to lay out the particulars of my problem.
| 
| -would love to be employed using R for a living but so far I have just
| worked with it on my home machine to develop a basic level of skill with
| it.
| -I run Ubuntu linux 8.04 LTS on a machine with a 2.5GHz Celeron
| processor and 1.2GB of memory. The Heron runs sprightly enough to suit
| on that combination.
| -noted on Cran that with the intro of the newest LTS edition, Lucid
| Lynx, support for the Heron is continued on suffrage only.
| -So, I tried to upgrade. Tried both Kubuntu and Ubuntu. Kubuntu dialled
| out and connected to my ISP but failed to get anywhere after
| authentication, Ubuntu failed to recognize my 3.5" A drive, and they
| were both unbelievably sluggish on my system so out they both go and I'm
| in the process of getting things set back up the way I had them with
| 8.04.
| 
| I realize this more OS than R, but I thought someone in the group might
| have some ideas or suggestions they'd care to share, off-list of course.
| Is there a way around this situation that doesn't involve huge outlays
| in new hardware? Is there another flavour of Linux that would work with
| my system and allow me to maintain a toe hold in the R camp so that I've
| got it as a marketable skill somewhere down the road? Any thoughts would
| be appreciated.

While this is really somewhat off-topic here, I think you would profit from
some local help and hand-holding for the Unix / Ubuntu aspect of your
upgrade.  Fellow Ottawa R (and on Ubuntu) users John Nash and Paul Gilbert
may be able to direct you to some friendly people.

-- 
  Regards, Dirk

Your hardware specifications are not much worse than those of my
netbook. And I am quite happy with Xubuntu 10.04 on it.

Best regards,

Carlos J. Gil Bellosta
http://www.datanalytics.com


2010/7/5 Brian Lunergan <ff809 at ncf.ca>:
> Evening folks:
>
> Not sure where this fits into the picture so bear with me for a few
> moments while I think out loud to lay out the particulars of my problem.
>
> -would love to be employed using R for a living but so far I have just
> worked with it on my home machine to develop a basic level of skill with
> it.
> -I run Ubuntu linux 8.04 LTS on a machine with a 2.5GHz Celeron
> processor and 1.2GB of memory. The Heron runs sprightly enough to suit
> on that combination.
> -noted on Cran that with the intro of the newest LTS edition, Lucid
> Lynx, support for the Heron is continued on suffrage only.
> -So, I tried to upgrade. Tried both Kubuntu and Ubuntu. Kubuntu dialled
> out and connected to my ISP but failed to get anywhere after
> authentication, Ubuntu failed to recognize my 3.5" A drive, and they
> were both unbelievably sluggish on my system so out they both go and
I'm
> in the process of getting things set back up the way I had them with
> 8.04.
>
> I realize this more OS than R, but I thought someone in the group might
> have some ideas or suggestions they'd care to share, off-list of
course.
> Is there a way around this situation that doesn't involve huge outlays
> in new hardware? Is there another flavour of Linux that would work with
> my system and allow me to maintain a toe hold in the R camp so that
I've
> got it as a marketable skill somewhere down the road? Any thoughts would
> be appreciated.
>
> Regards...
> --
> Brian Lunergan
> Nepean, Ontario
> Canada
>
> _______________________________________________
> R-SIG-Debian mailing list
> R-SIG-Debian at r-project.org
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-debian
>

Le dim. 4 juil. ? 19:33, Brian Lunergan a ?crit :
> Evening folks:
> 
> Not sure where this fits into the picture so bear with me for a few
> moments while I think out loud to lay out the particulars of my problem.
> 
> -would love to be employed using R for a living but so far I have just
> worked with it on my home machine to develop a basic level of skill with
> it.
> -I run Ubuntu linux 8.04 LTS on a machine with a 2.5GHz Celeron
> processor and 1.2GB of memory. The Heron runs sprightly enough to suit
> on that combination.
> -noted on Cran that with the intro of the newest LTS edition, Lucid
> Lynx, support for the Heron is continued on suffrage only.
> -So, I tried to upgrade. Tried both Kubuntu and Ubuntu. Kubuntu dialled
> out and connected to my ISP but failed to get anywhere after
> authentication, Ubuntu failed to recognize my 3.5" A drive, and they
> were both unbelievably sluggish on my system so out they both go and
I'm
> in the process of getting things set back up the way I had them with
> 8.04.
> 
> I realize this more OS than R, but I thought someone in the group might
> have some ideas or suggestions they'd care to share, off-list of
course.
> Is there a way around this situation that doesn't involve huge outlays
> in new hardware? Is there another flavour of Linux that would work with
> my system and allow me to maintain a toe hold in the R camp so that
I've
> got it as a marketable skill somewhere down the road? Any thoughts would
> be appreciated.
We don't want to guarantee LTS (as per Ubuntu) support of R for Hardy since
our past experience in trying to do this for Dapper Drake proved hurtful.
However, at the time, both R and Debian/Ubuntu releases changed a lot and we had
to manually undo many changes to compile R on Dapper.

So far, Hardy has been a no brainer. If things continue like that for a while,
you should get fresh R binaries regularly. But things may change very quickly.
I'm afraid if you want to stay on Hardy, you may eventually have to either
live with an older release of R or compile it yourself.

Regards,

Vincent Goulet
?cole d'actuariat, Universit? Laval

Brian

I run Ubuntu and Gnome and R on some systems that are much older than
that, and performance is reasonable.  I ran 8.04, 9.04, and now am
running 10.04, and several versions of R.  I'm not sure about the 3.5
disks. My machines have those drives, but I've not recently checked if
they work.  I'll see if I can find a disk to try.

I think the dial-up Internet may be a problem. At least, I find Gnome is
very slow when I don't have my Internet connection. I'm not sure what
the reason is, but some things (orbit? Update?, other applets?) seem to
check the Internet often, and stall waiting for a response.

Paul 
>-----Original Message-----
>From: r-sig-debian-bounces at r-project.org
[mailto:r-sig-debian-bounces at r-
>project.org] On Behalf Of Brian Lunergan
>Sent: July 4, 2010 7:34 PM
>To: R Debian SIG List
>Subject: [R-sig-Debian] OT: Problems updating OS to deal with fading
>Rsupport for Ubuntu Hardy Heron...
>
>Evening folks:
>
>Not sure where this fits into the picture so bear with me for a few
>moments while I think out loud to lay out the particulars of my
problem.
>
>-would love to be employed using R for a living but so far I have just
>worked with it on my home machine to develop a basic level of skill
with
>it.
>-I run Ubuntu linux 8.04 LTS on a machine with a 2.5GHz Celeron
>processor and 1.2GB of memory. The Heron runs sprightly enough to suit
>on that combination.
>-noted on Cran that with the intro of the newest LTS edition, Lucid
>Lynx, support for the Heron is continued on suffrage only.
>-So, I tried to upgrade. Tried both Kubuntu and Ubuntu. Kubuntu dialled
>out and connected to my ISP but failed to get anywhere after
>authentication, Ubuntu failed to recognize my 3.5" A drive, and they
>were both unbelievably sluggish on my system so out they both go and
I'm
>in the process of getting things set back up the way I had them with
>8.04.
>
>I realize this more OS than R, but I thought someone in the group might
>have some ideas or suggestions they'd care to share, off-list of
course.
>Is there a way around this situation that doesn't involve huge outlays
>in new hardware? Is there another flavour of Linux that would work with
>my system and allow me to maintain a toe hold in the R camp so that
I've
>got it as a marketable skill somewhere down the road? Any thoughts
would
>be appreciated.
>
>Regards...
>--
>Brian Lunergan
>Nepean, Ontario
>Canada
>
>_______________________________________________
>R-SIG-Debian mailing list
>R-SIG-Debian at r-project.org
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-debian
===================================================================================
La version fran?aise suit le texte anglais.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This email may contain privileged and/or confidential information, and the Bank
of
Canada does not waive any related rights. Any distribution, use, or copying of
this
email or the information it contains by other than the intended recipient is
unauthorized. If you received this email in error please delete it immediately
from
your system and notify the sender promptly by email that you have done so. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Le pr?sent courriel peut contenir de l'information privil?gi?e ou
confidentielle.
La Banque du Canada ne renonce pas aux droits qui s'y rapportent. Toute
diffusion,
utilisation ou copie de ce courriel ou des renseignements qu'il contient par
une
personne autre que le ou les destinataires d?sign?s est interdite. Si vous
recevez
ce courriel par erreur, veuillez le supprimer imm?diatement et envoyer sans
d?lai ?
l'exp?diteur un message ?lectronique pour l'aviser que vous avez ?limin?
de votre
ordinateur toute copie du courriel re?u.