R SIG Debian - Apr 2008 - Deb-4.0 Etch and sources.list for R

Hi Folks,
I'm running Debian-4.0 Etch, installed last September
from a DVD, and regularly updated as things arise.

I have R version 2.4.0 Patched (2006-11-25 r39997)
installed (initially at the time of first installation
of Debian, as provided by Debian), along with a variety
of packages.

I'd like to be able to connect to the CRAN repositories
for Debian R, for updates etc.

When I visit

  http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/

I read:

  As a courtesy to the R users on the Debian "stable"
  platforms, the "stable" directory on CRAN contains
  so-called 'backports' of the current R binaries for
  the "stable" distribution of Debian. Simply add
  something like

  deb http://<favorite-cran-mirror>/bin/linux/debian stable/

  to the file /etc/apt/sources.list on your computer and
  install as usual. We currently provide binaries for the
  i386 and amd64 architectures.

Well, I put the following into /etc/apt/sources.list:

  deb http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/ stable/

(which looks sufficiently "something like" to me). BUT:

When I open the (graphical) Synaptic Package Manager up pops
a window with the message:

  An error occured
  The following details are provided:

  W: Couldn't stat source package list
  http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk stable/ Packages

(/var/lib/apt/lists/www.stats.bris.ac.uk_R_bin_linux_debian_
stable_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
[all one line]

However, I find there precisely is a directory:

http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/stable/Packages

so I'm puzzled!

Grateful for any help (and only beginning to get used to
Debian, not having used it since its flaky transition to 1.0
sometime during 1998! Been on Red Hat and SuSE since; now trying
Debian again and, mostly, getting along fine).

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 27-Apr-08                                       Time: 23:41:24
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

OOPS! I made a typo (see below)

-----FW: <XFMail.080427234127.Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>-----

Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:42:19 +0100 (BST)
From: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
To: r-sig-debian at r-project.org
Subject: Deb-4.0 Etch and sources.list for R

Hi Folks,
I'm running Debian-4.0 Etch, installed last September
from a DVD, and regularly updated as things arise.

I have R version 2.4.0 Patched (2006-11-25 r39997)
installed (initially at the time of first installation
of Debian, as provided by Debian), along with a variety
of packages.

I'd like to be able to connect to the CRAN repositories
for Debian R, for updates etc.

When I visit

  http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/

I read:

  As a courtesy to the R users on the Debian "stable"
  platforms, the "stable" directory on CRAN contains
  so-called 'backports' of the current R binaries for
  the "stable" distribution of Debian. Simply add
  something like

  deb http://<favorite-cran-mirror>/bin/linux/debian stable/

  to the file /etc/apt/sources.list on your computer and
  install as usual. We currently provide binaries for the
  i386 and amd64 architectures.

Well, I put the following into /etc/apt/sources.list:

***###***
deb http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/ stable/
That line was in error. What I have in /etc/apt/sources.list is:
***###***

deb http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian stable/

(which looks sufficiently "something like" to me). BUT:

When I open the (graphical) Synaptic Package Manager up pops
a window with the message:

  An error occured
  The following details are provided:

  W: Couldn't stat source package list
  http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk stable/ Packages

(/var/lib/apt/lists/www.stats.bris.ac.uk_R_bin_linux_debian_
stable_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
[all one line]

However, I find there precisely is a directory:

http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/bin/linux/debian/stable/Packages

so I'm puzzled!

Grateful for any help (and only beginning to get used to
Debian, not having used it since its flaky transition to 1.0
sometime during 1998! Been on Red Hat and SuSE since; now trying
Debian again and, mostly, getting along fine).

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 27-Apr-08                                       Time: 23:41:24
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

--------------End of forwarded message-------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 27-Apr-08                                       Time: 23:56:22
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

Ted,

There can always be issues with individual mirrors, so it helps to see if you
can access the url you are adding to /etc/apt/sources.list in the normal way
with a webbrowser etc.

For what it is worth, the following does work for me:

   edd at ron:~> tail -2 /etc/apt/sources.list
   # CRAN
   deb http://cran.us.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian stable/
   edd at ron:~> 

and you may want to s/us/uk/ there. Also note the final slash, IIRC it is
required.

Then do 

   sudo apt-get update

and follow up with 

   apt-cache policy r-base-core

which should show you the version from CRAN as well as the regular Debian
versions.  An

   apt-get dist-upgrade

would then upgrade R if you already have installed; and you can always do

   apt-get install r-base

to add it to an R-less system.

Hope this helps, Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.