Michael,
It is very likely that a network install will not work. A security patch
ca 2 years ago to Windows XP (etc) disallowed loading .chm files from a
network, and you can stop loading .dll files too (and Vista does now by
default AFAIR).
What we do is to install R locally (via the .msi installer that can be
made: see the R-admin manual) and have other packages on a network drive
*with* the chtml directory deleted*. That way students get CHM help on
the basic packages and text help on those loaded from the network.
However, you want to 'freeze' an image (or your sysadmins do). I would
build a custom installer including the packages you want and hand it to
them to install locally. The R-admin manual tells you how to do this: it
may well be daunting but I remember you work with John Fox and he has done
this (and will probably be willing to advise you).
Final comment: I suggest you do this with R-patched. It looks like we
will not have an R 2.7.2, but R-patched is now in a releasable state,
precisely because people will be wanting to install something for the
coming academic year (North Hemisphere).
On Fri, 8 Aug 2008, Michael Friendly wrote:
Our support staff will be installing R 2.7.1 on a Windows Novell network
where R will reside on the server
rather than on the local lab machines or at best will be in an image that is
copied to the local machines.
I want to suggest a set of additional packages that should be installed as
part of the image beyond
the base and recommended packages.
Once this is done, the image will be frozen for some time,
so I want to make sure it gets done right. Moreover, the support staff who
will do this are not familiar
with R, so I need to make it as easy as possible, telling them to do steps A,
B, ...
I can think of two methods, but there isn't an easy way for me to test them
out, so I'd appreciate any
advice. In particular, I want to make sure that all compiled help files
(.chm) are also available. Some
of these, like rgl, will have .dll files in a ../libs directory.
1: Copy the packages I want from those already installed in my
C:\R\R-2.7.1\library to a folder
on the server and tell them:
A. copy those folders to \\server\R\R-2.7.1\library
B. start R, and from the R Console, choose Packages -> Update packages...
2. I download all the Windows binary packages (.zip) I want, copy them to a
folder on the server, and
tell them
A. start R, and from the R Console, choose Packages -> Install packages from
local zip file(s)...
B. select all, OK, have a coffee.
what is most likely to be fool-proof?
thanks,
-Michael
--
Michael Friendly Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca Professor, Psychology
Dept.
York University Voice: 416 736-5115 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814
4700 Keele Street http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/friendly.html
Toronto, ONT M3J 1P3 CANADA
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Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self)
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