Current Ubuntu version of R is old

[Derek Broughton]

Paul Smith wrote:

> I am just beginning with Ubuntu and I have just installed R. The
> current version of R is 2.6.1, but Ubuntu brings up the 2.5.1 one, an
> old version. Why is that?

Could I suggest you provide package names when referring to something like
this, please?  I remember installing R a couple of months back and having a
hell of a time finding it because, like months, practically every package
has an "r" in it somewhere...

r-base is hardly very old for an ubuntu package.  It takes time to integrate
a package into ubuntu, and the ubuntu (or debian, or any distro's package)
is always going to lag behind the upstream version.  It's just the price
you pay for getting prepackaged versions of your software.  I think you'll
find that most of us use whatever Ubuntu comes with for the software that
doesn't really matter to us, but for the really important apps - to us - we
look elsewhere.
-- 
derek