[Nottingham] [Talk] Thursday 19/06/2008 - What is there on Linux?What can it do?

[Haber Mike]

> 
> Say you install an OS, and want some feature that's not 
> supported out of the box, whether it's 3D modelling or 
> cellphone integration, GPS, a fancy screensaver, drawing 
> packages, maths packages, UML modelling, etc.
> 
> With commercial OSs you have to go to a shop and buy some new 
> software. There's a whole industry based around selling you 
> the packages. So you pay money for them and in return it's 
> fairly easy to be able to do new stuff. To a lesser extent 
> you can search online for things which may or may not cost 
> money and may or may not do what you want.
> 
> 
>  http://www.r-project.org/

Have you *ever* seen a copy of 'S-Plus' (the package that 'R' is a 
clone of) in a shop?
My guess is that no shop would have a clue what you were on about,
and even if they had a copy the person on the shopfloor would  struggle 
explain what it does. They's just be interested in selling *something*.

Users like yourself would probabally find out about 'R' it from the 
community, either a physical community (at a university perhaps) or by
 asking in a virtual one.

Either way, if it's not what you're after they're free to try the
alternatives, recommended by your community.
As an aside, I found installing and managing R much easier than dealing
 with S-Plus.

Mike 


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