The R-project offers several installation possibilities for Ubuntu.
GNU R statistical system (universe)
and GNU R statistical system (multiverse)
, where many extensions are available, but the r-base packages are in the Mathematics (universe)
section. The package r-base-dev
needed for compiling contributed packages not available compiled in cran
is in the Development (universe)
section.cran
has a UBUNTU PACKAGES FOR R README page. It recommends using sudo apt-get install r-base
for the basic application, or sudo apt-get install r-base-dev
to install the extensible basic applicationdeb http://<my.favorite.cran.mirror>/bin/linux/ubuntu maverick/
or …<my.favorite.cran.mirror>
by the actual URL of your favorite CRAN mirror. See http://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html for the list of CRAN mirrors.
Unfortunately, the packages available for Maverick are over a year old : R version 2.11.1 (2010-05-31)
My chosen alternative was to download the current version from http://www.r-project.org/ having chosen a nearby mirror from http://cran.r-roject.org/mirrors.html. I then did not choose the Download R for Linux from the Download and Install R box, but the download source code for all platforms Current release from the second box.
The next step is to build and install it. The instructions for this are not placed where they are obviously easy to find. I found them by following the “Manuals” link on the home page, then the link to either html or pdf for “R Installation and Administration.” Briefly, the build is classic:
/usr/local/src
./configure
: to prepare the make configuration. In my case, I had to install a Fortran compiler before building.make
make check
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