The R FAQ is very helpful about installing R on various Linuxes, but doesn't
seem to discuss the advantages of one distribution over another. I am new
to Linux (though not to Unix!), and would appreciate some guidance from
those with experience.
I plan to set up a headless Linux x86 server for the sole purpose of running
64-bit R. Are there reasons to prefer some Linux distributions over others?
I have no preference between binary and source distributions of R, as along
as they are complete, up-to-date, easy to install, and easy to update.
I would be accessing the server through my Windows desktop using Emacs/ESS.
What is the recommended way to display plots on the desktop? An X server? A
display Postscript server? Something else?
My data come out of a DBMS; do some Linux distributions have better ODBC
drivers than others?
Thanks,
-s
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
I'm running R on the current version of Gentoo and had no trouble building
the complete system required. The only problem is that the current version in
portage (stable) is 2.7.2.
I would be curious to hear what insightful responses you get.
Best,
Krzysztof
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
-----Original Message-----
From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 17:27:10
To: <r-help at r-project.org>
Subject: [R] Best 64-bit Linux distro for R?
The R FAQ is very helpful about installing R on various Linuxes, but doesn't
seem to discuss the advantages of one distribution over another. I am new
to Linux (though not to Unix!), and would appreciate some guidance from
those with experience.
I plan to set up a headless Linux x86 server for the sole purpose of running
64-bit R. Are there reasons to prefer some Linux distributions over others?
I have no preference between binary and source distributions of R, as along
as they are complete, up-to-date, easy to install, and easy to update.
I would be accessing the server through my Windows desktop using Emacs/ESS.
What is the recommended way to display plots on the desktop? An X server? A
display Postscript server? Something else?
My data come out of a DBMS; do some Linux distributions have better ODBC
drivers than others?
Thanks,
-s
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________
R-help at r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
On 8 February 2009 at 17:27, Stavros Macrakis wrote:
| The R FAQ is very helpful about installing R on various Linuxes, but
doesn't
| seem to discuss the advantages of one distribution over another. I am new
| to Linux (though not to Unix!), and would appreciate some guidance from
| those with experience.
|
| I plan to set up a headless Linux x86 server for the sole purpose of running
| 64-bit R. Are there reasons to prefer some Linux distributions over others?
| I have no preference between binary and source distributions of R, as along
| as they are complete, up-to-date, easy to install, and easy to update.
|
| I would be accessing the server through my Windows desktop using Emacs/ESS.
| What is the recommended way to display plots on the desktop? An X server? A
| display Postscript server? Something else?
|
| My data come out of a DBMS; do some Linux distributions have better ODBC
| drivers than others?
Good question, and while it in general may depend on your preferences and
tastes, there are some things that make the Ubuntu amd64 _server_ flavour
appealing for your situation:
- it is meant for servers, so no extra desktop apps or processes
- Ubuntu amd64 has support via CRAN's binary set of R packages, ie you get
a pre-built R 2.8.1 without any extra work
- additional goodies such as ESS, littler, ... available via CRAN as well
in updated packages
- you still have the usual 20,000+ Ubuntu packages, including iodbc and
unixodbc and number of related packages:
edd at joe:~$ apt-cache search odbc| wc -l
101
edd at joe:~$
It so happens that I just installed another compute server at work on Friday.
I had a cdrom handy with Ubuntu 8.04 for amd64/server -- the install was done
in a few minutes, as was the on-line upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10. All in under
300 packages were installed as I chose a lean default. You can probably
achieve the same using Debian's install cdroms. Your mileage may vary but a
number of us have been happy with this. And to connect, I use Cygwin's x11
server which got updated recently and have no issues.
Hth, Dirk
--
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.
Thanks, All! -Girish On Feb 9, 7:49?am, Dirk Eddelbuettel <e... at debian.org> wrote:> On 8 February 2009 at 18:29, Girish A.R. wrote: > | So, does that mean I can install Ubuntu 64-bit "amd64" server edition > | on a machine that has Intel Xeon processor without much of a problem? > > Yes it should work. You have a choice of 32bit and 64bit OS for these. > Background details are athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amd64 > > Dirk > > -- > Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions. > > ______________________________________________ > R-h... at r-project.org mailing listhttps://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guidehttp://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.