On Thu, 2006-08-24 at 10:53 -0400, roger bos wrote: > I am looking for help install the x86_64 R Binary onto my FC5 machine. At > the risk of subjecting myself to tons of criticism, I must confess that I > don't know anything about Linux and I have never compiled R from source. > Therefore, I choose FC5 because I see that a 64-bit binary is already > available. > > Here is what I tried: I installed FC5 with all options (productivity, > software development, and web server). FC5 boots up fine. I downloaded all > the R binary files in that FC5 directory to my USB drive and copied > them onto my linux machine (where I don't yet have internet access). I > created a folder in my rbos's Home directory and copied the files there. I > clicked on the R-2.3.1-1.fc5.x86_64.rpm and right-clicked to choose 'open > with "install software"' It asked me for my root password. I put in the > same root password I choose when I installed FC5. I get a "installing > packages" screen that shows the R filename and I click Apply. It then give > me an Error: "Unable to retrieve software information". > > Can anyone tell me what steps I am missing? The R install guide states that > binary installs are platform specific so it only considers building from the > sources. I look forward to learning a lot about Linux and using more than > just the GUI, but to get started, I just want to learn how to install a > binary of R. > > Thanks so much, > > Roger
Roger, I don't know if the GUI version of the RPM interface (Red Hat/Fedora's Package Manager) is sufficiently robust these days. In the past, there were notable problems trying to use it to install software binaries. I would open a console and change into the folder where you copied the files. If you are running GNOME and do not have a Terminal launcher (icon) on any of your panels, you can go to the menus and select: Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal This will open a console on your desktop, just like the Windows command line console. Then change to the appropriate folder: cd /Path/To/FolderName Note that unlike Windows, the slashes are '/', not '\'. Then in that folder, type: su You will be prompted for the root password. If successful, you will note that the prompt prefix changes from a '$' to a '#'. Then, type: rpm -ivh R-2.3.1-1.fc5.x86_64.rpm This will begin the R installation process. If you get back to the prompt without any error messages, you should be good to go. Then type: exit at the console, which will exit root status and bring you back to your regular user ID (prompt prefix back to '$'). Needless to say, that while you have root privileges in the console, be careful in what you might type. You have total access to screw up the system... :-) If you get any error messages, post them back here and we can help debug the process. HTH, Marc Schwartz ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
