[R] R-update - what about packages and ESS?

[Christian Hennig]

Thanks for the answers so far.

I have to go through this with my system administrator.

The system is slackware linux.

> For Unix-alikes, it all depends how the update was done, but normal
> package update mechanisms (such as RPM) will not wipe out previously
> installed R packages: nor will 'make install'.

I don't really understand what "does not wipe out" means. Certainly, the 
packages are not deleted from the hard disk, but...

Am I right that I should expect it as standard behaviour that all 
previously installed packages are found if R is updated in a 
straightforward manner (using "make install", say)?
Or is the opposite true that I definitely should not expect it? (And is 
there any standard solution for this else than installing all packages 
again?)

> In either case you don't need root access to install packages, as you can
> use a private library.

That's not really enough because I want to have them accessible to 
students as well. Furthermore, the sysadmin may develop kind of a "the 
whole R-thing is crap"-attitude if I can't come up with a solution 
preventing new installation of all packages, and I don't really want 
that. So I'm rather not interested in discussing solutions 
which involve installing all packages again (I know that this is possible).

Best,
Christian

*** --- ***
Christian Hennig
University College London, Department of Statistical Science
Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, phone +44 207 679 1698
chrish at stats.ucl.ac.uk, www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucakche