Installing and configuring different versions of R.

[grabear]

From @grabear on May 8, 2018 3:49

https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-admin.html#Installation

Copied from original issue: datasnakes/beRi#13

[grabear]

I just found this on GitHub. @sdhutchins
https://github.com/spack/spack/blob/develop/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/r/package.py

[sdhutchins]

Nice! I starred this earlier and I never even considered how it could be used for this package. Glad you posted that here. My initial thought was using it for our server 😔 or on the MCSR.

Related, check out www.numfocus.org.

I was writing up an email (I had to leave 😢) about the grants that NumFocua funds. They seem to be pretty open proposals and I think the nature of beri would be perfect for it (it's built in python and helps tackle data science). I saw spack and some other cool stuff on their site.

[sdhutchins]

A bit more about spack...

To install R, it's as simple as the below...

spack install r@3.5.2

The installation location can be edited as well...(https://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/config_yaml.html?highlight=install%20location) in spack's config.yaml

config:
  # This is the path to the root of the Spack install tree.
  # You can use $spack here to refer to the root of the spack instance.
  install_tree: $spack/opt/spack


  # Locations where templates should be found
  template_dirs:
    - $spack/share/spack/templates


  # Default directory layout
  install_path_scheme: "${ARCHITECTURE}/${COMPILERNAME}-${COMPILERVER}/${PACKAGE}-${VERSION}-${HASH}"


  # Locations where different types of modules should be installed.
  module_roots:
    tcl:    $spack/share/spack/modules
    lmod:   $spack/share/spack/lmod
    dotkit: $spack/share/spack/dotkit

Ultimately, we need to test out spack on a server to get a better feel for it.

• Using spack's api to create a thin wrapper around their R installation script.
• Decide if there are additional R packages we want to include in the base R installation.

[grabear]

Can you use a named config file? Like rinse.yml instead of config.yml?

Or can you use a python dictionary for config?

[sdhutchins]

Can you use a named config file? Like rinse.yml instead of config.yml?

Or can you use a python dictionary for config?

I think a rinse.yml file is a great idea. Thinking more on that...we could make it "shareable"? for people who want to replicate a build on more than one machine. Not a priority, but something I thought of.

[sdhutchins]

• Create a rinse.yml for configuring rinse and namely spack.