R in VDI, and package installation

Source packages

These instructions are for version 4.4.x of R!

If you absolutely need to install packages from source, you will have to install Rtools on your Z: drive:

  1. Download rtools44-xxxx-yyyy.exe (where xxxx and yyyy are numbers) from here.
  2. Install to your Z: drive, to a folder named Z:\.R\rtools44
  3. Optional, but recommended:
    1. Open a Windows Command Prompt (press Win+R, type cmd and press Enter).
    2. Issue the command pacman -Syuu to update the core packages (press Y when it asks to proceed).
    3. Issue the command pacman -Suu to update the system packages (press Y when it asks to proceed)