For those who don't follow Ubuntu development carefully, the first Beta for the next Ubuntu was recently released, so I took my home system and upgraded to help out with filing bugs, etc. Just to be clear, I am not looking for help with the upgrade process. I've had R, and a few miscellaneous CRAN packages installed on this computer for years. Today, when I loaded an R session I had developed before the upgrade, I saw something new in my R "welcome message".> >R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24) >Copyright (C) 2009 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing >ISBN 3-900051-07-0 > >R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. >You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. >Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details. > >R is a collaborative project with many contributors. >Type 'contributors()' for more information and >'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications. > > >This is REvolution R version 3.0.0: >the optimized distribution of R from REvolution Computing. >REvolution R enhancements Copyright (C) REvolution Computing, Inc. > >Checking for REvolution MKL:>- REvolution R enhancements not installed.>For improved performance and other extensions: apt-get install revolution-rThe last part, about this being the "enhanced" version of R was . . . unexpected. I have heard of this company before and now I've spent some time on their website. Looking at my installation, Ubuntu did not install any of the REvolution Computing components, although R now basically thows a warning every time I start it. My question(s) for the community is this (pick any question(s) you like to answer: Should I install the REvolution Computing packages? Do these packages really make R faster? Are these packages stable? What are your experiences with REvolution Computing software? I am interested in hearing from members of the community, REvolution Computing employees/supporters (although please ID yourself as such) and most anyone else. I can see what they say on their website, but I'm interested in getting other opinions too. Thanks!
Martin Maechler
2009-Oct-05 07:52 UTC
[R-sig-Debian] REvolution R sneaking inside Ubuntu ???
Read this on R-help, subject "[R] Ubuntu, Revolutions, R". I can hardly believe it's true and at the moment suspect that Andrew has a very unusual '/etc/apt/sources.list' or (an analogoue of that) Any qualified comments, Dirk Eddelbuettel, Vincent Goulet, ?? Martin>>>>> "AC" == Andrew Choens <andy.choens at gmail.com> >>>>> on Sun, 4 Oct 2009 23:40:44 -0400 writes:AC> For those who don't follow Ubuntu development carefully, AC> the first Beta for the next Ubuntu was recently AC> released, so I took my home system and upgraded to help AC> out with filing bugs, etc. AC> Just to be clear, I am not looking for help with the AC> upgrade process. I've had R, and a few miscellaneous AC> CRAN packages installed on this computer for years. AC> Today, when I loaded an R session I had developed before AC> the upgrade, I saw something new in my R "welcome AC> message". >> >> R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24) >> Copyright (C) 2009 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing >> ISBN 3-900051-07-0 >> >> R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. >> You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. >> Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details. >> >> R is a collaborative project with many contributors. >> Type 'contributors()' for more information and >> 'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications. >> >> >> This is REvolution R version 3.0.0: >> the optimized distribution of R from REvolution Computing. >> REvolution R enhancements Copyright (C) REvolution Computing, Inc. >> >> Checking for REvolution MKL: >> - REvolution R enhancements not installed. >> For improved performance and other extensions: apt-get install revolution-r AC> The last part, about this being the "enhanced" version of R was . . . AC> unexpected. I have heard of this company before and now I've spent some time AC> on their website. Looking at my installation, Ubuntu did not install any of AC> the REvolution Computing components, although R now basically thows a warning AC> every time I start it. AC> My question(s) for the community is this (pick any question(s) you like to AC> answer: AC> Should I install the REvolution Computing packages? AC> Do these packages really make R faster? AC> Are these packages stable? AC> What are your experiences with REvolution Computing software? AC> I am interested in hearing from members of the community, REvolution Computing AC> employees/supporters (although please ID yourself as such) and most anyone AC> else. I can see what they say on their website, but I'm interested in getting AC> other opinions too. AC> Thanks! AC> ______________________________________________ AC> R-help at r-project.org mailing list AC> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help AC> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html AC> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
I updated to Ubuntu 9.10 Beta yesterday, and yes I do see the same message and I am a bit irritated. I don't want to read these 'marketing' lines any time I start up R. I simply deleted the lines from "/etc/R/Rprofile.site" for now, but I am still wondering who put that in. Is there any deeper reason I didn't get ? Hans Werner gunksta wrote:> > For those who don't follow Ubuntu development carefully, the first Beta > for the > next Ubuntu was recently released, so I took my home system and upgraded > to > help out with filing bugs, etc. > > Just to be clear, I am not looking for help with the upgrade process. I've > had > R, and a few miscellaneous CRAN packages installed on this computer for > years. > Today, when I loaded an R session I had developed before the upgrade, I > saw > something new in my R "welcome message". >> >>R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24) >>Copyright (C) 2009 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing >>ISBN 3-900051-07-0 >> >>R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. >>You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. >>Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details. >> >>R is a collaborative project with many contributors. >>Type 'contributors()' for more information and >>'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications. >> >> >>This is REvolution R version 3.0.0: >>the optimized distribution of R from REvolution Computing. >>REvolution R enhancements Copyright (C) REvolution Computing, Inc. >> >>Checking for REvolution MKL: > >- REvolution R enhancements not installed. >>For improved performance and other extensions: apt-get installrevolution-r> > The last part, about this being the "enhanced" version of R was . . . > unexpected. I have heard of this company before and now I've spent some > time > on their website. Looking at my installation, Ubuntu did not install any > of > the REvolution Computing components, although R now basically thows a > warning > every time I start it. > > My question(s) for the community is this (pick any question(s) you like to > answer: > Should I install the REvolution Computing packages? > Do these packages really make R faster? > Are these packages stable? > What are your experiences with REvolution Computing software? > > I am interested in hearing from members of the community, REvolution > Computing > employees/supporters (although please ID yourself as such) and most anyone > else. I can see what they say on their website, but I'm interested in > getting > other opinions too. > > Thanks! > > ______________________________________________ > 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. > >-- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Ubuntu%2C-Revolutions%2C-R-tp25744817p25749786.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Andrew is correct: the upcoming release of Ubuntu (Karmic Koala) will feature the REvolution R distribution. (I am a REvolution Computing employee.) Our developers have been working with Canonical's representatives over the past several months to upgrade R in Ubuntu to 2.9.2 and to include the REvolution R extensions.> My question(s) for the community is this (pick any question(s) you like to > answer: > Should I install the REvolution Computing packages? > Do these packages really make R faster? > Are these packages stable? > What are your experiences with REvolution Computing software?Whether you install the REvolution Computing packages is up to you. When you upgrade to KK, the only change made to stock R is the .Rprofile.site file, adding the message about how to install the extensions. (You can edit the .Rprofile.site file if you prefer.) If you do install the extensions, no changes are made to the core R language (it is 100% compatible with stock R). R will be linked to multi-threaded math libraries, which will improve performance for some mathematical operations (particularly on a multi-core system, where more than 1 processor will be used). So you should expect it to make R faster. Installing the extensions also installs some additional packages from REvolution Computing, including foreach and iterators, and Simon Urbanek's multicore package from CRAN. The REvolution packages have been in use for over a year, and are very stable. In any case they are not attached by default. But if you do load these packages, you can use the "foreach" function to parallelize loops, making R run faster on multicore systems. I'll leave others to speak of their experiences of REvolution Computing software (our contributions to the community include the packages nws, foreach, iterators, doSNOW and doMC and REvolution R itself). But from my personal perspective, I'm proud to have been able to extend awareness and use of R to new domains, and to improve the performance of R for many users. # David Smith Director of Community, REvolution Computing On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 8:40 PM, Andrew Choens <andy.choens at gmail.com> wrote:> For those who don't follow Ubuntu development carefully, the first Beta for the > next Ubuntu was recently released, so I took my home system and upgraded to > help out with filing bugs, etc. > > Just to be clear, I am not looking for help with the upgrade process. I've had > R, and a few miscellaneous CRAN packages installed on this computer for years. > Today, when I loaded an R session I had developed before the upgrade, I saw > something new in my R "welcome message". >> >>R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24) >>Copyright (C) 2009 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing >>ISBN 3-900051-07-0 >> >>R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. >>You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. >>Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details. >> >>R is a collaborative project with many contributors. >>Type 'contributors()' for more information and >>'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications. >> >> >>This is REvolution R version 3.0.0: >>the optimized distribution of R from REvolution Computing. >>REvolution R enhancements Copyright (C) REvolution Computing, Inc. >> >>Checking for REvolution MKL: > ?>- REvolution R enhancements not installed. >>For improved performance and other extensions: apt-get install revolution-r > > The last part, about this being the "enhanced" version of R was . . . > unexpected. ?I have heard of this company before and now I've spent some time > on their website. Looking at my installation, Ubuntu did not install any of > the REvolution Computing components, although R now basically thows a warning > every time I start it. > > My question(s) for the community is this (pick any question(s) you like to > answer: > ? ? ? ?Should I install the REvolution Computing packages? > ? ? ? ?Do these packages really make R faster? > ? ? ? ?Are these packages stable? > ? ? ? ?What are your experiences with REvolution Computing software? > > I am interested in hearing from members of the community, REvolution Computing > employees/supporters (although please ID yourself as such) and most anyone > else. I can see what they say on their website, but I'm interested in getting > other opinions too. > > Thanks!-- David M Smith <david at revolution-computing.com> Director of Community, REvolution Computing www.revolution-computing.com Tel: +1 (206) 577-4778 x3203 (San Francisco, USA) Check out our upcoming events schedule at www.revolution-computing.com/events
Andrew Choens <andy.choens <at> gmail.com> writes:> > I am interested in hearing from members of the community, REvolutionComputing> employees/supporters (although please ID yourself as such) and mostanyone> else. I can see what they say on their website, but I'm interested ingetting> other opinions too. > > Thanks! > >Ubuntu is a commercial distribution, for loose definitions of commercial. Why shouldn't they cut a deal with Revolution, who is doing a very similar thing? If you want something closer to the ideal of volunteer-driven free as in beer and speech, you'll need to stick with Debian. Canonical and Revolution have very similar business models. And they just happen to have similar relationships to volunteer-driven development in Debian and R-Core. -tony AJ Rossini blindglobe at gmail.com