Install R and RStudio

Installing R on Mac can be problematic. What I’ve heard from my students is that software dependencies can be a huge problem when installing not just R but also Python, Ruby and more tools.

Does it have to be problematic? The easiest option to install R on Mac is to use Homebrew that is a package manager that will do everything for you when you input short commands such as brew install r. In order to install R in this way you need to:

• Install XCode Command Line Tools
• Install Homebrew
• Finally install R

You can download R for Mac from CRAN website, and Medium provides a good tutorial for that alternative, but my students complain about that installation method. Some of them have faced problems to complete the installation doing that but they had no difficulties when choosing Homebrew alternative.

I highly recommend to install R with OpenBLAS. In plain terms, OpenBLAS will boost some operations and I want you to be a happy user. You can ignore this advice if you are going to work with relatively small datasets.

Between steps three or four just choose what you think is more suitable for you. Don’t complete step three and then step four or you will waste time as step four will replace all what you did on step three.

Step 1: Install XCode Command Line Tools

Compiling software on OS X requires XCode CLT, and installing R requires compiling at some steps so there is no scape from this part.

Open the Terminal (cmd + space and search ‘Terminal’) and paste this command:

xcode-select --install

Then hit enter and wait a minute. If your computer already has this software you will see a message warning that XCode CLT is already installed, otherwise it will take a moment to automatically download and install the software.

Step 2: Install Homebrew

In order to install Homebrew paste this command in the terminal:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Then hit enter and watch a lot of code and emojis appear on the screen.

Now you would want to configure Homebrew path. You just need to run this just once and then experience the magic. The reason to do this is that this is the way to tell your system where Homebrew software can be found on your hard disk.

Paste this piece of code in the terminal:

# Homebrew PATH
echo "export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.bash_profile && source ~/.bash_profile

As you might guess, you need to hit enter after pasting it.

Step 3: Install R without OpenBLAS

We have already installed XCode CLT and Homebrew. So now paste this piece of code in the terminal:

brew install r
echo 'Sys.setlocale(category="LC_ALL", locale = "en_US.UTF-8")' >> ~/.bash_profile

Hit enter and something good will happen.

Step 4: Install R with OpenBLAS

This is very similar to the last step. Paste this piece of code in the terminal:

brew install openblas
brew install r --with-openblas
echo 'Sys.setlocale(category="LC_ALL", locale = "en_US.UTF-8")' >> ~/.bash_profile

Hit enter and something good will happen.

Step 5: Install RStudio

Finally paste this piece of code in the terminal:

brew cask install rstudio

Hit enter and you’ll be ready.

Install R and RStudio

You should install R with OpenBLAS. In plain terms, OpenBLAS will boost some operations and I want you to be a happy user. You can ignore this advice if you are going to work with relatively small datasets.

Installing R on Ubuntu is simple, amazingly simple! We can install R, RStudio and the Tidyverse in a super simple way compared to Windows or OS X way.

Between steps one or two just choose what you think is more suitable for you. Don’t complete step one and then step two or you will waste time as step two will replace all what you did on step one.

Step 1: Install R without OpenBLAS

Open the terminal and paste this piece of code:

# R without OpenBLAS
sudo apt-get install r-base

Then press enter.

Step 2: Install R with OpenBLAS

Open the terminal and paste this piece of code:

# R with OpenBLAS
sudo apt-get install libopenblas-base r-base

Then press enter.

Step 3: Install RStudio

Don’t leave the terminal and paste this piece of code:

sudo apt-get install gdebi
cd ~/Downloads
wget https://download1.rstudio.org/rstudio-xenial-1.1.379-amd64.deb
sudo gdebi rstudio-xenial-1.1.379-amd64.deb

Then press enter.

Another install option is to visit RStudio to obtain the software and then install it from the desktop without needing commands.

Install R and RStudio

My experience with Windows and R went from tragic to amazing. What made my R and Windows experience amazing was Microsoft R Open that is an R instance that comes with Intel MKL, a numerical library that increases speed for some operations, enabled by default.

In any case you can always install Stock R. Please notice that here you may choose step one or two but not both as it would be quite un productive. After you complete one of the two first steps then go for the next steps.

Step 1: Install Microsoft R Open

To install R on Windows just download it from MRO Downloads and then execute the installer. The setup is straightforward, just hit ‘next’ when required and be sure you mark the MKL option.

Step 2: Install CRAN R

As an alternative to step one you can install from CRAN (The Comprehensive R Archive Network). Just visit CRAN downloads and get the last version.

Step 3: Install RStudio

To install RStudio just visit RStudio Downloads and download the last version. The setup is straightforward and simple.