F#: RProvider on Linux

RProviderLinux.md

F#: Making RProvider work on Linux (Lubuntu 16.04)

Here are the necessary steps:

• Install the recent Mono including F# as it's described in the section Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives.

• Install Monodevelop (the addins are not necessary for RProvider, but are handy to have anyway):

sudo apt-get install monodevelop monodevelop-nunit monodevelop-versioncontrol

• In the Monodevelop install the F# plugin (you can ignore the installation error, it's a known bug).

• Restart the Monodevelop!

• Skim through the guide Using R provider on Mac and Linux and ignore everything regarding the 64-bitness: Mono is 64bit on the Linux distribution by default.

• Configure RProvider:

echo -e "MONO64=`which mono`\nR_HOME=`R --print-home`" > ~/.rprovider.conf

• Create a F# Tutorial solution, as described in the guide mentionned above, and install rprovider nuget package.

• Paste following code into the Tutorial.fsx (pay attention to the I path and the RProvider version):

#nowarn "211"
#I "../packages/RProvider.1.1.20"
#load "RProvider.fsx"

open RProvider
open RProvider.graphics
open RProvider.grDevices
open RProvider.datasets

R.mean([1;2;3;4])

// testing graphics
R.x11()

// Calculate sin using the R 'sin' function
// (converting results to 'float') and plot it
[ for x in 0.0 .. 0.1 .. 3.14 -> 
    R.sin(x).GetValue<float>() ]
|> R.plot

// Plot the data from the standard 'Nile' data set
R.plot(R.Nile)

• Close the R graph window later with:

R.graphics_off()

• If you want to run examples from R Provider Tutorial, you need to install some R packages. Run following commands in R command prompt:

install.packages("zoo")
install.packages("tseries")

Also replace SPX with SPY in the example F# code from the tutorial.