R Programming/Settings

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Contents 1 Installation [1] 1.1 Linux 1.2 Windows 1.2.1 Download 1.2.2 Setup 1.2.3 Screenshots

[edit] Installation ^[1]

On this page you can learn about the installation (setup) of R on a Windows PC. Please note that R is a multi platform programming language working also under MacOS X and Linux machines. The description on these should be added here as well.

• Note that you have a portable version if you want to install R on your USB stick (R portable).
• fr R portable version

[edit] Linux

Installing R on Debian-based GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu or Debian itself) is as simple as to type in aptitude install r-base (don't forget that this is have to be done as root), or installing the package r-base using your favourite package manager, for example Synaptic.

There is also a bunch of packages extending R to different purposes. Their names begin with r-. Take a closer look at the package r-recommended. It is a metapackage that depends on a set of packages that are recommended by the upstream R core team as part of a complete R distribution. It is possible to install R by installing just this package, as it depends on r-base.

[edit] Windows

[edit] Download

To install R under Windows operating system you have to download the binaries from the web. First go to r-project.org and click CRAN under download section on the left panel and select a mirror site, from where you could download the required content. The best idea is pick a mirror closest to your actual geographical location, but other ones should work as well. The click Windows and in subdirectories base. The windows binary is the exe file, in form R-x.x.x-win32.exe, where x denotes the actual version of the program. Regardless of the version the setup has the same steps.

[edit] Setup

As usually in Windows, if you click just the Next button, you will install the program without any problems. There are few things, that you can alter however.

1. On the welcome screen click Next.
2. Read or just notice the GNU license, and click Next.
3. Select the location, where R should be installed. In case you don't prefer a particular location on your hard disc, the default choice will be OK for you.
4. During the next step you can specify which parts of R you want to install. Choices are: User installation, Minimal user installation, Full installation and Custom installation. Notice the required space under the selection panel (varies between 20 and 66 MB). In case you are a beginner in R, choose the default User installation.
5. In this step you can choose between 2 ways. If you accept defaults, you skip the 3 "extra" steps during installation (see lower).
6. You can specify the Start menu folder.
7. In the next step you can choose, between shortcut possibilities (desktop icon and/or quick launch icon) and specify registry entries.

Extra steps:
With these steps you can customize the R graphic user interface.

• You can choose if you want an R graphic user interface covering the whole screen (MDI) or a smaller window (SDI).
• You can select the style, how the Help screen is displayed in R. You will use help a lot, so this may be an important decision. It is up to you, which style you prefer. Please note, that the content of help file will be the same regardless of your choice. Here you specify just the appearance of that particular window.
• In the next step you can specify, whether you want to use internet2.dll. If you are a beginner, pick the Standard option here.

[edit] Screenshots

The 3 extra steps: