Solaris packages of R-Project software

The Solaris Operating System, usually known simply as Solaris, is a free Unix-based 
operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS.
Solaris is known for its scalability, especially on SPARC systems, as well for being 
the origin for many innovative features such as DTrace and ZFS. Solaris supports 
SPARC-based and x86-based workstations and servers from Sun and other vendors, 
with efforts underway to port to additional platforms.

Packages on Solaris allow easy installation and extraction of software. 
All the parts of a package are maintained in a table of contents. The package tools 
allow you to install, update and remove software easily without having to worry 
about "ghost files" left on the system or misconfigured or partly installed software.

INSTALLATION

The steps towards a successful installation are as follows:
1. Download
2. Extract
3. Install

1. DOWNLOAD
When downloading a file, make sure you are saving in binary (not text) mode. 
Check that the filesize matches the size listed above after downloading. From now on,
we shall assume that you download the file R-2.6.2.SPARC.pkg.tar.gz, which is the 
package containing the binaries for a 64-bit UltraSPARC IV Solaris platform.

2. EXTRACT

The R-project binaries are distributed in .tar.gz format as you might have observed. 
To uncompress the package file, follow the steps listed below:

gunzip R-2.6.2.SPARC.pkg.tar.gz

This operation would produce the file : R-2.6.2.SPARC.pkg.tar, which expands the compressed
gzip archive. To get to the package to be installed, you need to do an additional step :

tar xvf R-2.6.2.SPARC.pkg.tar

To short-circuit the operations, you might issue the command:

gunzip -dc R-2.6.2.SPARC.pkg.tar.gz | tar -xvf -

Both the operations would produce the file : R-2.6.2.SPARC.pkg,  package "datastream" file,
which the package that shall be installed on your system.

3. INSTALL
To install the package datastream file, we shall use the pkgadd command. pkgadd command is 
available on almost all Solaris platforms (since Solaris 2.5.1).

To begin the installation, become root (login or su -). Change to the directory containing the 
package. Use /usr/sbin/pkgadd to install packages. 

For example,
pkgadd -d R-2.6.2.SPARC.pkg

This command installs the package under /usr/local/R. If the directory does NOT exist before,
the Solaris packaging mechanism creates the necessary directories. 

To verify the installation, issue the command: pkginfo -l
For example, issue:

pkginfo -l R-Project

This would list the R-Project upon a successful installation, in addition to additional information.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 
If you want to ask a question on Solaris, subscribe to comp.unix.solaris USENET newsgroup.

ACCOUNTABILITY

The Solaris packages are maintained for R-Project by Mithun Sridharan (e.mail : mithun@sun.com).
Additionally, versions 2.6.2 and 2.7.0 have also been made available for the Sun Grid environment 
by Mithun Sridharan. To learn more about the Grid infrastructure, please visit http://network.com
Please address any queries about the port/performance/the binaries on Solaris platform or Sun Studio
compiler suite to Mithun Sridharan.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I, Mithun Sridharan, would like to thank the R-Project team for their sustained interest, encouragement
and appreciation in making this port happen. I would specially like to thank Dr. Martin Maechler (ETH Zurich),
Prof. Kurt Hornik (University of Vienna) and Mr. Stefan Theussl (University of Vienna) for their 
sustained support and interest in the port and other related tasks in getting the binaries on CRAN.

Mithun Sridharan,
Sun Microsystems GmbH,
Altrottstrasse 31,
D-69190 Walldorf, Germany 
e.mail : mithun@sun.com

Dated : 24.June.2008