For some mysterious reason I do not believe this was delivered to the list. Sorry if it turns out to be a duplicate.---Bob>> Subject: optimal R windows machineI have the happy task of purchasing a new windows desktop PC. I have a limited but not unreasonable budget and access to discounts and so forth. What would be folks' suggestions of priorities and requirements be if I will use the machine for a lot of C and R based data analysis with large files, computationally intensive, a lot of graphic display but not 3D animation. I am proposing 1GB AMD processor, 1 GB RAM, 40GB drive, hi-speed CDRW, 64MEG video, Win XP home edition. Thoughts? I will upgrade software also: Suggestions of C compiler package? Other "must have" packages compatible with R? Thanks, Bob Porter, Ph.D. Lambda Consulting Tampa -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Bob Porter <rjporter at mindspring.com> writes:>I have the happy task of purchasing a new windows desktop PC. I have a >limited but not unreasonable budget and access to discounts and so forth. > What would be folks' suggestions of priorities and requirements be if I >will > use the machine for a lot of C and R based data analysis with large files, > computationally intensive, a lot of graphic display but not 3D animation. >I >am proposing 1GB AMD processor, 1 GB RAM, 40GB drive, hi-speed CDRW, 64MEG >video, Win XP home edition. Thoughts? I will upgrade software also: >Suggestions of C compiler package? Other "must have" packages compatible >with R?With the processor and memory thing should fly along. The video is a bit over specified as most 64MB cards will be optimised for 3D graphics at high colour depths. It will work OK but you might be better off going for a cheaper graphics card and spending the savings on a better quality monitor / keyboard / mouse. I have no experience with Windows XP. I would consider one of the Linux distributions with a small and light windows manager as I imagine XP will be quite an overhead. Mark -- Mark Myatt -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
I agree with Mark about Linux, if for no other reasons than the fact that it actually comes with the compilers needed to build R and do further code development. Compared with doing it on Linux, compiling R from source on Windows is not exactly a pleasure, even with the tremendous work to make it even possible by Ripley and Mararrato. Cheers, Andy> -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Myatt [mailto:mark at myatt.demon.co.uk] > Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 5:05 AM > To: Bob Porter > Cc: R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch > Subject: Re: [R] optimal windows R machine > > > Bob Porter <rjporter at mindspring.com> writes: > > >I have the happy task of purchasing a new windows desktop > PC. I have a > >limited but not unreasonable budget and access to discounts > and so forth. > > What would be folks' suggestions of priorities and > requirements be if I > >will > > use the machine for a lot of C and R based data analysis > with large files, > > computationally intensive, a lot of graphic display but not > 3D animation. > >I > >am proposing 1GB AMD processor, 1 GB RAM, 40GB drive, > hi-speed CDRW, 64MEG > >video, Win XP home edition. Thoughts? I will upgrade > software also: > >Suggestions of C compiler package? Other "must have" > packages compatible > >with R? > > With the processor and memory thing should fly along. The > video is a bit > over specified as most 64MB cards will be optimised for 3D graphics at > high colour depths. It will work OK but you might be better off going > for a cheaper graphics card and spending the savings on a > better quality > monitor / keyboard / mouse. I have no experience with Windows XP. I > would consider one of the Linux distributions with a small and light > windows manager as I imagine XP will be quite an overhead. > > Mark > > > -- > Mark Myatt > > > -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. > -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- > r-help mailing list -- Read > http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html > Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" > (in the "body", not the subject !) To: > r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch > _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. > _._._._._._._._._ >-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Agustin Lobo wrote:> On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Tim Churches wrote: > > > Mark Myatt wrote: > > > > > > Bob Porter <rjporter at mindspring.com> writes: > > > > .../... > > > > And why not set up you machine to at least dual boot into Linux as an > > alternative to Windows XP? > > > > Tim Churches > > Another alternative is using VMware for switching between > Windows and Linux with no reboot. You can even have both the > dual boot and the VMWare acces to Windows from within Linux. > See http://www.vmware.com/support/ws3/doc/ws30_disks4.htmlHave you tried that yourself? You get a very slow Windows machine. Win4lin is faster, but you only get a Windows 98 emulation. Everyone I know who has tried those routes has abandoned them, and either reboots or has a second main box, one for each OS, and switches between them. I reboot: it takes about a minute. -- Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272860 (secr) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
We did try VMware on one of our Linux boxes (dual P3 866 Xeon with 2GB RDRAM). It was unbearably slow! Cheers, Andy> -----Original Message----- > From: Prof Brian Ripley [mailto:ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk] > Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 5:10 AM > To: Agustin Lobo > Cc: R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch > Subject: Re: [R] optimal windows R machine > > On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Agustin Lobo wrote: > > > > Another alternative is using VMware for switching between > > Windows and Linux with no reboot. You can even have both the > > dual boot and the VMWare acces to Windows from within Linux. > > See http://www.vmware.com/support/ws3/doc/ws30_disks4.html > > Have you tried that yourself? You get a very slow Windows machine. > Win4lin is faster, but you only get a Windows 98 emulation. > Everyone I > know who has tried those routes has abandoned them, and > either reboots or > has a second main box, one for each OS, and switches between them. > > I reboot: it takes about a minute. > > -- > Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk > Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ > University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) > 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272860 (secr) > Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 > > -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. > -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- > r-help mailing list -- Read > http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html > Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" > (in the "body", not the subject !) To: > r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch > _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. > _._._._._._._._._ >-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
rossini at blindglobe.net [mailto:rossini at blindglobe.net] wrote:> >>>>> "AL" == Andy Liaw <Liaw> writes: > > AL> We did try VMware on one of our Linux boxes (dual P3 866 Xeon > AL> with 2GB RDRAM). It was unbearably slow! > > > (and others have responded similarly). > > I think it depends on what you need. It was fine for me, using MS > Word and MS Powerpoint, as well as for running (not developing) Java > GUI-based applications (which have not tended to be that fast on > Unix, unlike say non-GUI apps).Maybe I'm more tolerable of "unbearable" slowness, but I also have found VMware to be more than adequate. I run an NT4 guest on a Linux (RH7.1) host and find the speed fine except for really I/O intensive things (disk or screen). CPU-bound tasks run at practically native speed. You do have to assign adequate memory to the virtual machine; you don't want Windows swapping to the virtual disk. So maybe really large R problems would be painful. One caveat is that VMware won't work right currently in full-screen mode on most setups using version 4.* of XFree86. In windowed mode, it's a bit more sluggish (screen I/O only; CPU-bound tasks are still fast). --Todd -- Why do 'slim chance' and 'fat chance' mean the same thing? -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._