R help - Oct 2010 - Of possible interest for (Win|Open)BUGS users on Linux platforms

Dear list,

It might be of interest to (Win|Open)BUGS users trying to use it from R
on Linux platform, and to Linux R users trying to call (Win|Open)BUGS to
note that two new packages have appeared on the OpenBUGS "User
Conributed Code" (http://openbugs.info/w/UserContributedCode).

R2OpenBUGS seems to be an adaptation of the R2WinBUGS package, able to
run "native" OpenBUGS without Wine contorsions (of late, I have been
unable to run WinBUGS from R2WinBUGS correctly without "debug" option,
WinBUGS not opening the script file. Probably yet another wine
regression...).

A version of BRugs able to use the linux version of OpenBUGS is also
avilable.

Their author (apparently Chris Jackson from MRC Cambridge, which I thank
heartily) states that "[p]ending additional user testing, they will be
posted to CRAN". I add that such testing (and reporting !) might hasten
this posting, an therefore the general availability of these packages.

These packages might also be useful to stress-test the "other" BUGS
implementation (JAGS), which gave me pause recently (in the
"deviance/pD/DIC" department...).

First data point : I have been able to install these two packages on
Ubuntu Lucid (64 bits, using the g++-multilib package) and Debian
Squeeze (32 bits) and to test BRugs quickly without apparent problems.

HTH,

					Emmanuel Charpentier