Current Ubuntu version of R is old

[Derek Broughton]

Paul Smith wrote:

> Thanks, Derek. Yes, I wanted to mean r-base. And yes, R is important
> to me, but I do not know where to find a package with a more recent
> version of r-base to work on Ubuntu.

Me neither, I'm afraid.  I don't actually have R on this system, because I
only installed it at the urging of some statistics geeks who were working
on the hammer principle ("if the only tool you have is a hammer, every
problem looks like a nail").  They knew how to do something I wanted in R,
but it turned out to only work in Windows :-).  So I was reduced to using
Windows & R, or Linux & Perl.  It was a tough call!

Anyway, the usual procedure is to go "upstream", and look for packages
closer to the source of development.  You could check in Debian
(packages.debian.org, iirc) and see if they have something more recent in
sid or experimental, and try installing it. I'd recommend that if that
requests obviously non-R dependencies, don't use it - it could break Ubuntu
apps - but you could get the _source_ package from there, and compile it.

If Debian doesn't work, you'll probably have to go to the R site itself, and
get the source (unless they happen to have .debs).
-- 
derek