Compiling R from Source

This is not compulsory and personally I do not recommend this unless you are a developer, or an experienced user who is not afraid to try this! If you are a normal end-user who simply wishes to get R running on your machine, then please read Section 2.1. Assuming you have downloaded the official release version, R-1.6.0.tgz, then under DOS-Prompt (Start -> Programs -> Dos Prompt if you are using Windows 9x, or Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt if using Windows NT/2000/XP). If you can't find it, then under Start -> Run..., type cmd to get in. Once you are in the command prompt, cd into the directory you save the file in and type:

tar zxvf R-1.6.0.tgz

this unpacks the compressed tar-ball to R-1.6.0 directory. You will then need to uncompress pcre-3.9.tar.gz and bzip2-1.0.2.tar.gz. Then copy them to R-1.6.0/src/extra/pcre, and R-1.6.0/src/extra/bzip2, respectively. Then cd into R-1.6.0/src/gnuwin32:

cd R-1.6.0/src/gnuwin32

You may need to edit the file MkRules. For example, it is most likely that you will need to edit the following ``blocks'':

## =========== configuration macros for building R ============

LEA_MALLOC=YES

# Set to YES and specify the path if you want to use the 
# ATLAS BLAS.
USE_ATLAS=NO
ATLAS_PATH=/R/ATLAS/lib/WinNT_PII

# Where does 'HTML Help Workshop' live? (unused if compiled 
# HTML help is not requested. Spaces allowed.)
HHWDIR=C:/Program Files/HTML Help Workshop

# Where does Tcl/Tk live? Spaces allowed.
TCL_HOME = C:/packages/Tcl # The path to where you install Tcl/Tk
TCL_VERSION = 83           # Your Tcl/Tk version.

and

## ====== configuration macros for building installers ======

# location where Inno Setup was installed
ISDIR=C:/packages/Inno
# location where zip files of binary packages are kept
PKGS=C:/R/Rdist/libs

Before you proceed, it is strongly recommended that you close all running programmes, including those running in the background, such as screen savers, anti-virus programme. This process will take quite a while. Then you just need to type:

make

and wait for it to compile.