On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 3:41 PM, José Matos <jamatos@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Thursday 23 October 2008 19:22:07 James Antill wrote: >> Well it kinda fits the "people expect foo-core + additions" _assuming_ >> CRAN is a requirement, but really why don't we just package more of the >> R modules so CRAN usage isn't a requirement? > > There are more than 1500 modules (the have been growing at an exponential rate > in the last years). So while we would like to see more R packages in Fedora in > are not even near to have a reasonable subset of R packaged. > > So for the moment CRAN is really a requirement to use R in Fedora. There have always been conflicts between the CRAN package system and Fedora or other linux packaging Guidelines. Users can install CRAN packages without root privileges, but then the search function won't know about the user's packages, and packages that rely on other library (gsl, hdf5, etc) still need -dev RPM's. Linux distros should not be trying to enforce guidelines for mainstream packages with their own robust package management and archive networks. Instead, they should look for ways to improve support for users who rely on those 3rd party systems. For example: R-base: basic runtime without dev dependencies, for sites that provide binary CRAN packages (e.g., on a shared directory) so users don't need to do compiles. R-core: R-base + -dev dependencies for those who want to install source packages from CRAN (e.g., most individual R users) R-X-sup(plement): -dev dependencies needed to build package X (e.g., R-hdf5-sup requires hdf5-dev for the hdf5 package from CRAN, gsl-dev for gsl, etc.). These aren't strictly necessary, but would serve to link package versions on CRAN with the versions of the support libs in Fed, something that can take some effort (e.g., peeking in the sources) to determine. For sites where users need to ask admins to install libraries, this simplifies the problem of telling the admin which libs to install. In the long run, linux distros should look at devising ways to capture information from these 3rd party package managers to help resolve dependencies automatically. -- George N. White III <aa056@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia _______________________________________________ Fedora-r-devel-list mailing list Fedora-r-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-r-devel-list
