Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > Yes, > >> What is the advantage of building this? > > was my question too. If you want a Unix-like version of R on PC hardware > running Windows why not run a Unix-like OS under a virtual machine? > > Quite a lot of the details are wrong: using FLIBS, BLAS_LIBS and LIBS as > intended will solve most of the problems. I would use --disable-nls > --disable-mbcs as you don't need them (and in particular you don't benefit > from MBCS support on Windows unless you are in a CJK locale). > > Note that 2.5.1 is released and there is unlikely to be a 2.5.2, so any > changes would be made only to R-devel. It there is a convincing case to > tailor a build for Cygwin there we can probably do so rather easily, but > the need for ongoing support would be a worry. > > (If platforms are not used and in particular not tested in the alpha/beta > testing phases then the ability to build on them crumbles away. We seems > to be down to regular testers on Linux, Windows, MacOS X, Solaris and > FreeBSD, with some help on AIX after a patch with none.)
I too have a workplace where Windows is the "official" IT-supported OS, and in some cases open-source tools do not have a native Windows port, thus needing Cygwin, or as you suggest, an embedded VMware Linux workstation. I run Cygwin and a Gentoo Linux VMware guest on my Windows machine. Having said that: 1. I consider the Windows version of R to have a *superior* user interface to the Linux version. The only place where it falls down in my opinion is the semi-difficult nature of building contributed packages that require C or C++ or Fortran compilation. 2. I know of few other open source communities that prefer a Cygwin version to a native Windows version if the native version exists. Most of them go further -- for example, the Ruby Windows people flat-out deprecate the Cygwin Ruby port, even though it is slightly faster than the native one and even though some C-language extensions won't build except on the Cygwin version! In short, Cygwin is a crutch IMHO, and an embedded Linux VMware guest isn't much better. I'm hoping to phase Cygwin out by the end of the year. I think if you need Linux, you should run Linux. That's going to require some patience and extreme people skills when you deal with your IT department, but it can be done. But on Windows boxes, you're much better off using only tools built for and tested on native Windows. ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
