[R] Installing different versions of R simultaneously on Linux

[Rainer M Krug]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Berwin A Turlach
<berwin at maths.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
> G'day Rainer,
>
> On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:53:12 +0200
> Rainer M Krug <r.m.krug at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > What flavour of Linux are we talking about?
>>
>> Sorry - I am running SuSE on the machine where I need it.
>
> Sorry, I am not familiar with that flavour; before switching to Debian
> (and Debian based distributions), I was using RedHat.  And before that
> Slackware.
>
>> > 4) Run in /opt/src a script that uses "update-alternative" install
>> > to install the new version and creates a link
>> > from /opt/R/R-x.y.z/bin/R to /opt/bin/R-x.y.z
>>
>> How do I do this? I usually call "sudo make install". Do I have to use
>> "update-alternative --install R-2.7.1 R 2" if I want to have R-2.7.1
>> aqs the second priority installed?
>
> I do the "make install" step manually, the script just alerts the
> system that another alternative for the R command was installed.
>
> If memory serves correctly, the "alternatives" mechanism was developed
> by Debian and adopted by RedHat (or the other way round).  I am not
> sure whether SuSE has adopted this, or a similar system.
>
> Essentially, for a command, say foo, for which several alternatives
> exists, is installed on the system in, say /usr/bin/, as a link
> to /etc/alternatives/foo and /etc/alternatives/foo is a link to the
> actual program that is called.
>
> E.g. on my machine I have
>
> berwin at berwin-nus1:~$ update-alternatives --list wish
> /usr/bin/wish8.5
> /usr/bin/wish8.4
>
> which tells me that wish 8.5 and wish8.4 are installed and I could call
> them explicitly.  /usr/bin/wish is a link to /etc/alternatives/wish
> and /etc/alternatives/wish will point to either of these two programs
> (depending on what the system admin decided should be the default, i.e.
> should be used if a user just types 'wish').
>
> A command like "update-alternatives --config wish" allows to configure
> whether "wish" should mean "wish8.5" or "wish8.4".  And all that is
> necessary is to change the link in /etc/alternatives/wish to point at
> the desired program.
>
>> That is what I need - but I can't find update-alternatives in SuSE
>
> As I said, I do not know whether SuSE offers this alternatives system
> or a similar system.  If it does, perhaps it is just a matter of
> installing some additional packages?  If it offers a different, but
> similar system, then you would have to ask on a SuSE list on that
> system is maintained and configured.
>
> On my machine I would say "apt-file search update-alternatives" to find
> out which package provides that command and to install that package if
> it is not yet installed.  I am afraid I do not know what the equivalent
> command on SuSE is.
>
>> > Typing R alone, will usually start the most recently installed
>> > version (as this will have the highest priority) but I can configure
>> > that via "sudo update-alternatives --config R". __I.e., I can make R
>> > run a particular version. __Since the "update-alternative" step
>> > above also registers all the *.info files and man pages, I will
>> > also access the documentation of that particular R version (e.g.,
>> > C-h i in emacs will give me access to the info version of the
>> > manuals of the version of R which is run by the R command).
>>
>> Exactly what I would like to have.
>
> Well, if you ever use a system that has the alternatives set up and the
> update-alternatives command, I am happy to share my script with you.

Thanks a lot for the offer - that would be great. I will set it up the
same way on m y PC with Xubuntu.

Cheers

Rainer

>
> Cheers,
>
>        Berwin
>
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-- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation
Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

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