To all: I currently download the R binaries for Redhat 7.x Linux. There is considerable turmoil in the vendors of Linux. Redhat apparently is changing it's business model to paid versions. This might motivate my department to use a different vendor of Linux. Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux will have R binaries in the future? Thanks, Nathan PS I looked at CRAN and didn't immediately find any info about the future. Nathan Leon Pace, MD, MStat Work:nlpace at bigpace.med.utah.edu Department of Anesthesiology Home:nlpaces at comcast.net University of Utah Work:801.581.6393 Salt Lake City, Utah Home:801.467.2925 Fax:801.581.4367 Cell:801.558.3987
Nathan Leon Pace, MD, MStat wrote:> To all: > > I currently download the R binaries for Redhat 7.x Linux. > > There is considerable turmoil in the vendors of Linux. Redhat apparently > is changing it's business model to paid versions. > > This might motivate my department to use a different vendor of Linux. > > Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux will > have R binaries in the future?Short answer: build from source. You won't regret it. Long answer: The "build from source" approach is remarkably painless under any Linux distribution I've tried (RH, SuSE, Slackware, et. al.). It's also painless under Solaris. The days of having to be a programmer to build R from source have been over for years. If you're computer literate enough to use R, you're probably over-qualified to build from sources. Kudos to R-core for their attention to detail in making what's complicated "under the hood" quite simple for the end user. Alternate answer: If you absolutely must have binaries, there will be binaries as long as there are users of your OS with time they wish to commit to building them. This may be where your sysadmin steps in :) Cheers Jason -- Indigo Industrial Controls Ltd. http://www.indigoindustrial.co.nz 64-21-343-545 jasont at indigoindustrial.co.nz
On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 15:07, Nathan Leon Pace, MD, MStat wrote:> To all: > > I currently download the R binaries for Redhat 7.x Linux. > > There is considerable turmoil in the vendors of Linux. Redhat > apparently is changing it's business model to paid versions. > > This might motivate my department to use a different vendor of Linux. > > Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux > will have R binaries in the future? > > Thanks, > > Nathan > > PS I looked at CRAN and didn't immediately find any info about the > future.At the risk of raising the spectre of a heated discussion, you can always download the source code for R and compile it locally, which is what I have been doing for some time. That approach also avails you of the updated R-Patched versions, as opposed to waiting for the next formal release binary version for bug fixes. There is a considerable amount of turmoil right now in the commercial Linux arena and much energy is being expended in the debate. Given the acquisition of SUSE by Novell/Ximian (with a notable investment by IBM) this week, that has thrown much of the commercial Linux world market into a frenzy. You can read Slashdot or other forums to gain a sense of the spectrum of opinions on this deal. That activity has prompted some to speculate on when Mandrake will be acquired given their fragile financial state. Combine this all with RH's change in direction with the Enterprise arm of products versus Fedora Core 1 (which went to release today), that has further aggravated the debate regarding the cost of paid support, community based distros versus commercial, etc. Fedora Core will be RH's free community based distro moving forward. If you want/need paid support from RH, then RHEL is your option there. Needless to say, Debian is very much still there as well. Each end-user organization will need to assess its own needs and which distro meets those needs. It is clear that the commercial entities are looking to find ways to remain financially viable, while still attempting to gain market share and evolve. Time will tell where it all goes. That time interval will more than likely be measured in years, not weeks or months. HTH, Marc Schwartz
"Nathan Leon Pace, MD, MStat" <nlpace at remi.med.utah.edu> writes:> To all: > > I currently download the R binaries for Redhat 7.x Linux. > > There is considerable turmoil in the vendors of Linux. Redhat > apparently is changing it's business model to paid versions. > > This might motivate my department to use a different vendor of Linux. > > Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux > will have R binaries in the future?While many people have commented on building from source, I'll state that's fine, but it gets old after the 10,000th time. Sure, it's amusing, and you get a great pleasure jolt from debugging on novel platforms and configurations, but it's not real work. One strategy is to find a distribution where the R maintainer is someone you trust. I trust Doug and Dirk (and hence Debian). best, -tony -- rossini at u.washington.edu http://www.analytics.washington.edu/ Biomedical and Health Informatics University of Washington Biostatistics, SCHARP/HVTN Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center UW (Tu/Th/F): 206-616-7630 FAX=206-543-3461 | Voicemail is unreliable FHCRC (M/W): 206-667-7025 FAX=206-667-4812 | use Email CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message and any attachme...{{dropped}}
"Nathan Leon Pace, MD, MStat" <nlpace at remi.med.utah.edu> writes:> I currently download the R binaries for Redhat 7.x Linux. > > There is considerable turmoil in the vendors of Linux. Redhat > apparently is changing it's business model to paid versions. > > > This might motivate my department to use a different vendor of Linux. > > Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux > will have R binaries in the future?Debian, and hence Knoppix, will continue to have R binaries. For those who are considering switching Linux distributions I would strongly recommend looking at Knoppix 3.3 (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/ although for the next few weeks you will need to click through to http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-old-en.html ) and Dirk Eddelbuettel's Quantian (http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/) which is based on Knoppix and contains the binaries of all R and Octave packages as part of the distribution. Dirk maintains the Debian packages of R and Octave packages and usually has binary Debian packages uploaded within a day of a new R release. (Well technically Dirk and I are co-maintainers of the R packages for Debian but in practice it is about 92% Dirk and 8% Doug doing the maintaining.) If you have never used Knoppix or Quantian you find it astonishing when you first try it out. You download one CD-ROM image, burn it onto a CD and boot from the CD. Next thing you know you have a working system. Dirk presented a paper on Quantian at DSC-2003. See http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/Conferences/DSC-2003/Proceedings/Eddelbuettel.pdf
>Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux >will have R binaries in the future?No. But, for what it is worth, the RPM for RedHat 9 installs perfectly on Fedora Severn beta. This is the closest thing to Red Hat 10, and I'm going to stick with Fedora unless I learn that their security announcements are slower than some other distribution. In the past, Red Hat has been first almost all the time to make patches available. I hope that continues with Fedora, but we will see. Jon
On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 22:07, Nathan Leon Pace, MD, MStat wrote:> To all: > > I currently download the R binaries for Redhat 7.x Linux. > > There is considerable turmoil in the vendors of Linux. Redhat > apparently is changing it's business model to paid versions. > > This might motivate my department to use a different vendor of Linux. > > Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux > will have R binaries in the future?I hadn't really given it much thought. I suppose I shall switch to creating RPMS for Fedora, since there won't be a Red Hat Linux 10. Don't hold your breath for RPMS for the Enterprise Version of Red Hat unless we (IARC) can negotiate a sweet licensing deal. I don't think Red Hat are abandoning poor acadamic users. They just aren't making money out of their boxed set, so they're replacing it with Fedora. Martyn
Ahh that's the beauty of gentoo Linux and emerge. You get to compile from source, but at the same time it keeps track of what you have done. There is now a Freshmeat project for emerge on other platforms, so others can take advantage of this model if they wish. Alan Jackson Staff Geophysicist Shell International Exploration and Production Inc. 3737 Bellaire Blvd, P O Box 481, Houston, Texas 77001-0481, USA Tel: +0117132457355 none Other Tel: +011-713-245-7355 Email: Alan.Jackson at shell.com Internet: http://www.shell.com/eandp-en -----Original Message----- From: Ben Bolker [mailto:bolker at zoo.ufl.edu] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 4:29 PM To: Jason Turner Cc: R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch; Nathan Leon Pace, MD,MStat Subject: Re: [R] R for various ports of linux I've always built from source and almost never had to do anything beyond "tar zxf sources.tgz; ./configure; make; make install" (on various Red Hat versions). On the other hand ... I've been hoping to move in the direction of an apt- or rpm-based solution to get a better handle on tracking package versions etc. etc. across multiple machines ... It does seem as though the Debian folks (Eddelbuettel [sp]?) are very quick about packaging apt versions ... Ben On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Jason Turner wrote:> Nathan Leon Pace, MD, MStat wrote: > > > To all: > > > > I currently download the R binaries for Redhat 7.x Linux. > > > > There is considerable turmoil in the vendors of Linux. Redhat apparently > > is changing it's business model to paid versions. > > > > This might motivate my department to use a different vendor of Linux. > > > > Is there anything predictable about which vendors/versions of Linux will > > have R binaries in the future? > > Short answer: build from source. You won't regret it. > > Long answer: > The "build from source" approach is remarkably painless under any Linux > distribution I've tried (RH, SuSE, Slackware, et. al.). It's also > painless under Solaris. > > The days of having to be a programmer to build R from source have been > over for years. If you're computer literate enough to use R, you're > probably over-qualified to build from sources. > > Kudos to R-core for their attention to detail in making what's > complicated "under the hood" quite simple for the end user. > > Alternate answer: > If you absolutely must have binaries, there will be binaries as long as > there are users of your OS with time they wish to commit to building > them. This may be where your sysadmin steps in :) > > Cheers > > Jason >-- 620B Bartram Hall bolker at zoo.ufl.edu Zoology Department, University of Florida http://www.zoo.ufl.edu/bolker Box 118525 (ph) 352-392-5697 Gainesville, FL 32611-8525 (fax) 352-392-3704 ______________________________________________ R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help