Setup

Here you can read how to download and install R and R-studio, and how to download data files for the course.

Data Sets

We will work with this data set in the course.

You do not need to download the file. We will do that together during the course.

Software Setup

Callout

Warning

Please do NOT install R and Positron on Onedrive or other clouddrives. R will work but you will not be able to install the extensions to R that you will need in this course!

Discussion

Installing R and Positron

R and Positron are separate downloads and installations. R is the underlying statistical computing environment, but using R alone is no fun. Positron is a graphical integrated development environment (IDE) that makes using R much easier and more interactive. You need to install R before you install Positron. Once installed, because Positron is an IDE, Positron will run R in the background. You do not need to run it separately.

If it is not possible for you to install R and Positron on your personal computer, Posit Cloud offers a free, online alternative, where you will be able to run R and RStudio in your browser. Currently, Positron does not offer a similar solution. Sign up with your email.

The free version of RStudio Cloud places limitations on the number of projects you can work on, and the amount of memory and processing power you can access. For the purposes of following these lessons, RStudio Cloud is perfectly adequate, and what we recommend if you have any problems installing R and Positron on your personal computer.

If you already have R and Positron installed

  • Open Positron, and click on “Help” > “Install Updates”. If a new version is available, quit Positron, and download the latest version for Positron.
  • To check which version of R you are using, start Positron, and the first thing that appears in the console indicates the version of R you are running. Alternatively, you can type sessionInfo(), which will also display which version of R you are running. Go to the CRAN website and check whether a more recent version is available. If so, please download and install it. You can check here for more information on how to remove old versions from your system if you wish to do so.

If you don’t have R and Positron installed

  • Download R from the CRAN website.
  • Run the .exe file that was just downloaded.
  • Go to the Positron download page.
  • From the list of versions, choose Positron x.yy.zzz - Windows. Vista/7/8/10 (where x, y, and z represent version numbers).
  • Double click the file to install it.
  • Once it’s installed, open Positron to make sure it works and you don’t get any error messages.

If you already have R and Positron installed

  • Open Positron, and click on “Help” > “Install Update”. If a new version is available, quit Positron, and download the latest version for Positron.
  • To check the version of R you are using, start Positron and the first thing that appears on the terminal indicates the version of R you are running. Alternatively, you can type sessionInfo(), which will also display which version of R you are running. Go on the CRAN website and check whether a more recent version is available. If so, please download and install it. In any case, make sure you have at least R 3.2.

If you don’t have R and Positron installed

  • Download R from the CRAN website.
  • Select the .pkg file for the latest R version.
  • Double click on the downloaded file to install R.
  • It is also a good idea to install XQuartz (needed by some packages).
  • Go to the Positron download page.
  • Select the relevant version of Positron x.yy.zzz - Mac OS X 10.6+ (64-bit) (where x, y, and z represent version numbers).
  • Double click the file to install Positron.
  • Once it’s installed, open Positron to make sure it works and you don’t get any error messages.
  • Follow the instructions for your distribution from CRAN, they provide information to get the most recent version of R for common distributions. For most distributions, you could use your package manager (e.g., for Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install r-base, and for Fedora sudo yum install R), but we don’t recommend this approach as the versions provided by this approach are usually out of date. In any case, make sure you have at least R 3.2.
  • Go to the Positron download page.
  • Select the version that matches your distribution, and install it with your preferred method (e.g., with Debian/Ubuntu sudo dpkg -i Positron-x.yy.zzz-amd64.deb at the terminal).
  • Once it’s installed, open Positron to make sure it works and you don’t get any error messages.