Back to square one – R and RStudio installation

I remember my first experience installing R. Basic installation can be humbling for someone not familiar with mirror networks or file binaries. I remember not knowing the difference between base and contrib… which one to select? The concept of CRAN and mirrors was also new to me. Which location do I choose and are they all the same? What the hell is a tar ball?? Simple challenges like these can be discouraging to first-time users that have never experienced the world of open-source software. Although these challenges seem silly now, they were very real at the time. Additionally, help documentation is not readily accessible for the novice. This month I decided to step back and present a simple guide to installing R and RStudio. Surprisingly, a quick Google search was unable to locate comparable guides. I realize that most people don’t have any problem installing R, but I can remember a time when step-by-step installation instructions would have been very appreciated. Also, I made this guide for a workshop and I’m presenting it here so I don’t have to create a different blog post for this month… I am lazy. Files for creating the guide are available here.

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Cheers,

Marcus