Thursday, April 17, 2008

Installing R in Suse SLED 10.1

Some one comments:"R is a nightmare in ANY distribution." I agree with him in regards to SUSE Linux Enterprise Edition version 10.1. I am using a x86_64 machine running SUSE SLED 10.1. I wrote in a letter about my bad experience when installing R.
"At first I tried SUSE's install software application, but it can't find R in its repository. Then I downloaded the rpm package of R for SUSE 10.1 from CRAN mirrors, and tried install software application again. But it can not resolve dependencies. At last I ran rpm -i R-base-2.6.1-3.1.x86_64.rpm from terminal. It said it needs libgfortran.

OK, I downloaded and installed libgfortran package, and then tried rpm -i R-base-2.6.1-3.1.x86_64.rpm again. This time it needed base. I downloaded base package and try to install it by running rpm -i base-1.3.6-1mdv2008.0.noarch.rpm (I am not sure this is the right package for my computer), butit needs apache-mod_php, apache-mod_ssl, php-mysql, etc. I have to give up."

Also it seems difficult to me to compile R from source code because the package dependency is so complex.

Finally I figured out a trick: we can run windows version R in a linux with Wine. First go to http://www.winehq.org/. download and install wine. And then grab a Windows installer of R and install it. It works, either basic computation or graphic display. But there is a little problem as shown in the following graph: the cursor overlaps with the text.




ps: Another by-product is that I can play starcraft on that Linux machine with a big display.

Reference:
1. Stuff I've learned about Wine

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Anti RSI Software

RSI stands for Repetitive Strain Injury. It results from repetitive motion of hands, wrist and long time incorrect posture that keeps specific muscles tense all the time. It is commonly seen in people who use computers a lot.

It is helpful to use more human-friendly mouse and keyboard, comfortable chairs and desks and pleasant work space; however we easily forget how long we use a computer when entirely concertrating on the work. Anti-RSI software can reminds us regular breaks and micropause .

Yun Fang recommended Workpace software to me yesterday. It offers a 30-day trial version, but charges a fee after that period. I found two alternative free anti-RSI software: Workrave for Windows and Linux and AntiRSI for Mac OS.






http://www.workrave.org/welcome/












http://tech.inhelsinki.nl/antirsi/

Reference:
Alleviate RSI the Hacker Way