R help - Apr 2004 - R on MacOS X

I just got a G4 running MacOS 10.3 today, so I immediately downloaded
R from CRAN.  To my disappointment, it insists on installing in a fixed
place and requires a root password to do so.  University policy is that
if your machine is on the net, you WON'T get root access nohow, unless
you're a designated sysadmin, which I'm not.  Is there any alternative
to downloading a source distribution and doing the classic
./configure;make;make install waltz?  Will there be?

>>>>> "Richard" == Richard A O'Keefe <ok at
cs.otago.ac.nz>
>>>>>     on Thu, 8 Apr 2004 16:48:05 +1200 (NZST) writes:
    Richard> I just got a G4 running MacOS 10.3 today, so I
    Richard> immediately downloaded R from CRAN.  

good move; one of the first thing a new computer needs,
(just after emacs) ;-)

    Richard> To my disappointment, it insists on installing in a
    Richard> fixed place and requires a root password to do so.
    Richard> University policy is that if your machine is on the
    Richard> net, you WON'T get root access nohow, unless you're
    Richard> a designated sysadmin, which I'm not.  Is there any
    Richard> alternative to downloading a source distribution
    Richard> and doing the classic ./configure;make;make install
    Richard> waltz?

yes, there's always been.
You have installed the  pre-compiled aka binary version for Mac;
instead get the source -- and actually make sure you get the
source of "R 1.9.0 beta" since you'll be installing from the
source, and also because there are substantial Mac specific
enhancements there.
For you in NZ, you'd use the Oz-mirror, and look in the src/base
directory  http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/CRAN/src/base/
(note the above should only work from NZ and AU).

Regards,
Martin Maechler