[Quantian-general] Quantian Futures (was Re: R & Octave) (fwd)

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> 
> Debian now has viable live-cdrom technology, so we can use that.  Coupled
> with the demise of openMosix (sad, but true) I am bound to return to 'core
> Debian', probably with a subset of packages from the last (and rather large)
> Quantian DVD. We'll see.  It would be nice if we could fit it onto a cheap
> usb stick -- so 2gb may be an upper limit.

4 GB USB sticks aren't all that expensive any more -- I'm on my second 
one at the moment. :)
> 
> But I'll probably focus on 'just what is in Debian' (which is a lot more than
> during the last Quantian iterations) which is both easier for me, more
> prudent in terms of what I can actually redistribute and the right policy
> signal anyway. [ Ie to all those who will email me that eg scilab is missing:
> fine, get it into Debian, then we'll talk. ]

I just yesterday installed Octave 3.0.0 and FreeMat 3.5 on my 
workstation -- I'm trying to run some Matlab software and wanted to 
compare the two. But I rarely use any "Matlab clone".

> Another advantage is that we could more easily build an amd64 version as we
> won't start from Knoppix.

I wasn't aware Knoppix was "amd64-challenged". I have an Athlon64 X2 and 
there's no way in the universe I'm running 32-bit software on it unless 
it's something unavoidable, like Flash players in Firefox. And so far, 
I've lived without those. :)

> I like Ubuntu too and use it as well. We could conceivably use it as a
> starting point too, so I remain more familiar with Debian.

Please stay with pure Debian if at all possible. I haven't had much luck 
with Ubuntu on any of my machines, and their "branding" irritates me.

> That said, I'll give a 3 hr tutorial at UseR 2008 in Dortmund in August (see
> http://www.statistik.uni-dortmund.de/useR-2008/tutorials/eddelbuettel.html )
> and I may or may not have an R-centric live cdrom/dvd ready for that :)

Great!! Just out of curiosity, will the *Windows* R run under Wine? I 
use Windows R at work and I think the UI is better than the stock R UI 
on Linux. :)