The Art of R Programming

can install R using your OS’s package manager. For example, if you’re run-

ning Fedora, you can install R by typing the following at the command line:

$ yum install R

For a Debian-based system, such as Ubuntu, the command looks

like this:

$ sudo apt-get install r-base

Check your distribution’s documentation for more details on installing

and removing packages.

A.3 Installing from Source.......................................................

On Linux or other UNIX-based machines (probably including Mac OS X),

you can also compile R’s source code yourself. Simply unpack the source

archive and follow the classic three-command installation procedure:

$ configure

$ make

$ make install

Note that you may need to runmake installas root, depending on your

write permissions and the location to which you’re installing R. If you want

to install to a nonstandard directory, say/a/b/c, you can runconfigurewith

the--prefixparameter, like this:

$ configure --prefix=/a/b/c

This might be helpful if you’re working on a shared machine and don’t

have write permissions to the standard installation directories like/usr.

354 Appendix A