R SIG Debian - Jan 2010 - Clash between r-cran-vr and r-cran-mass

[ Kevin sent this to me but agreed that it's better to have this discussed
here. ]

On 30 January 2010 at 11:35, Kevin Donnelly wrote:
| I am using Ubuntu 9.10.  Installing r-cran-latticist asks for r-cran-vr to
| be installed as well, but this gives the following message: 
| E: /var/cache/apt/archives/r-cran-vr_7.2.47-1_i386.deb: trying to overwrite
| '/usr/lib/R/library/MASS/NAMESPACE', which is also in package
r-cran-mass 0
| Is it possible for the packages to be updated to resolve this clash?

It's a somewhat long story:

1) For a decade, R had a bundle called 'VR' that contained (inter alia)
MASS.

2) Many packages depend on MASS, but as MASS did not exist as an installable
   package (beging cloaked by VR) have to depend on VR instead.

3) So for Debian packages this became r-cran-vr, and we still have many
   package depending on r-cran-vr when it should be r-cran-mass that they should
   depend upon.

4) To make matters more interesting, R changed course and stopped having
bundles. So
   VR is now gone and we have four replacement packahes MASS, spatial, nnet and
class.
   Trouble is, 'we' still have the depends on r-cran-vr to satisfay.

5) All that said, you are creating your own trouble. There simply is no
   package r-cran-latticist for Ubuntu.

6) I presume you are trying to mix Ubuntu with the cran2deb repository. That
   may work but IT IS NOT SUPPORTED or recommended or designed that way as
   cran2deb is for (currently, at least) Debian testing only.  So buyer
   beware, and if things break, you get to keep the pieces.

7) What you need is r-cran-vr_7.3-1 from Debian. It is an empty package that
   pulls in all four pieces formerly contained by VR.  It depends on MASS
   (which you seem to have as per the error above).

8) That said, things could still go astray. Recall point 6). You are somewhat
   on your own here.

9) One day we hope to have cran2deb for Ubuntu. We currently do not have
   resources to get there and hence no ETA.

Hope this helps,  Dirk

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

On Saturday 30 January 2010 17:18, Dirk Eddelbuettel
wrote:
> It's a somewhat long story:
<snip>

Thanks for the explanation - that makes it clear.  I understand the caveats 
with Ubuntu, but so far everything seems to work - then again, since I'm a 
newbie with R, I just might not be aware that it isn't working :-)  If there
are problems, I will uninstall the cran2deb packages and go back to 
R:install.packages().

Thanks for your help!

-- 
Pob hwyl / Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

www.eurfa.org.uk - Geiriadur rhydd i'r Gymraeg