How To Install r-recommended on Ubuntu 18.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install r-recommended on Ubuntu 18.04. r-recommended is GNU R collection of recommended packages [metapackage]

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install r-recommended on Ubuntu 18.04.

r-recommended is:

R is a system for statistical computation and graphics. It consists of a language plus a run-time environment with graphics, a debugger, access to certain system functions, and the ability to run programs stored in script files.

The design of R has been heavily influenced by two existing languages: Becker, Chambers & Wilks’ S and Sussman’s Scheme. Whereas the resulting language is very similar in appearance to S, the underlying implementation and semantics are derived from Scheme.

The core of R is an interpreted computer language which allows branching and looping as well as modular programming using functions. Most of the user-visible functions in R are written in R. It is possible for the user to interface to procedures written in the C, C++, or FORTRAN languages for efficiency, and many of R’s core functions do so. The R distribution contains functionality for a large number of statistical procedures and underlying applied math computations. There is also a large set of functions which provide a flexible graphical environment for creating various kinds of data presentations.

Additionally, several thousand extension “packages” are available from CRAN, the Comprehensive R Archive Network, many also as Debian packages, named ‘r-cran-’.

This Debian package is now a metapackage that depends on a set of packages that are recommended by the upstream R core team as part of a complete R distribution, and distributed along with the source of R itself, as well as directly via the CRAN network of mirrors. This set comprises the following packages (listed in their upstream names):

  • KernSmooth: Functions for kernel smoothing for Wand & Jones (1995)
  • Matrix: Classes and methods for dense and sparse matrices and operations on them using Lapack and SuiteSparse
  • MASS, class, nnet and spatial: packages from Venables and Ripley, `Modern Applied Statistics with S’ (4th edition).
  • boot: Bootstrap R (S-Plus) Functions from the book “Bootstrap Methods and Their Applications” by A.C. Davison and D.V. Hinkley (1997).
  • cluster: Functions for clustering (by Rousseeuw et al.)
  • codetools: Code analysis tools for R
  • foreign: Read data stored by Minitab, S, SAS, SPSS, Stata, …
  • lattice: Implementation of Trellis (R) graphics
  • mgcv: Multiple smoothing parameter estimation and GAMs by GCV
  • nlme: Linear and nonlinear mixed effects models
  • rpart: Recursive partitioning and regression trees
  • survival: Survival analysis, including penalised likelihood.

There are three methods to install r-recommended on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install r-recommended using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install r-recommended

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install r-recommended using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install r-recommended

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install r-recommended using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install r-recommended

To uninstall only the r-recommended package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove r-recommended

To uninstall r-recommended and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove r-recommended

To remove r-recommended configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge r-recommended

We can use the following command to remove r-recommended configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge r-recommended

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install r-recommended package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.