R SIG Debian - Feb 2011 - Difference in the BLAS_LIBS definition on Ubuntu packages

A while back I posted to this group that I was having difficulty
compiling packages that used BLAS and Lapack on an Ubuntu 32-bit
system.  I looked a little further into the issue and discovered that
the /usr/lib/R/etc/Makeconf files are different on the 32-bit and
64-bit Ubuntu packages

maverick/r-base-core_2.12.1-1maverick0_i386.deb

and the corresponding 64-bit version.  The Make variable BLAS_LIBS is
defined as -lblas on the 64-bit system

$ egrep BLAS /etc/R/Makeconf
BLAS_LIBS = -lblas

but on the 32-bit system it is defined as -lf77blas -latlas

On 02/07/2011 04:12 PM, Douglas Bates wrote:
> A while back I posted to this group that I was having difficulty
> compiling packages that used BLAS and Lapack on an Ubuntu 32-bit
> system.  I looked a little further into the issue and discovered that
> the /usr/lib/R/etc/Makeconf files are different on the 32-bit and
> 64-bit Ubuntu packages
> 
> maverick/r-base-core_2.12.1-1maverick0_i386.deb
> 
> and the corresponding 64-bit version.  The Make variable BLAS_LIBS is
> defined as -lblas on the 64-bit system
> 
> $ egrep BLAS /etc/R/Makeconf
> BLAS_LIBS = -lblas
> 
> but on the 32-bit system it is defined as -lf77blas -latlas
Doug,

Thanks for finding that.  Checking with some other builds (Debian.
mainly),  it appears that the amd64 version is correct with:

BLAS_LIBS = -lblas

Due to the loss of a server, we are in a temporary holding pattern in
terms of updating the Ubuntu packages on CRAN.  That should be corrected
soon.  However, if you are interested in getting a i386 version without
"-lf77blas -latlas", you can use my Launchpad PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~marutter/+archive/rrutter

Michael