![R For Mac Install R For Mac Install](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125840819/296132494.jpg)
The incredibly useful research program called R is available on many platforms — Linux, Windows and Apple computers — and can run the same scripts across all three of its different versions. That said, the experience of getting R to run those scripts is not quite the same on an Apple Mac. This seems to be some kind of unwritten rule for Macs — whatever your program, on a Mac the menus, procedures and names of commands will somehow end up being different.
R for Windows) Open the downloaded.exe file and Install R; For Mac: Download the appropriate version of.pkg file form the following link. ( R for Mac) Open the downloaded.pkg file and Install R; For Linux: For complete R System installation in Linux, follow the instructions on the following link ( Link).
So what? Well, if you’re just getting started with R, you’ll need to occasionally get some tips and tricks for making the program work. Most of the how-to blog posts and videos you can find out there use examples using a Linux or Windows system — and they just won’t work for a Mac. I found this out the hard way when teaching students to use the igraph package for R to perform social network analysis. A few of my students have Macs at home, and it didn’t take long for them to cry for help, because the R program they were dealing with looked very little like the R program I’d been showing them.
If you find yourself in the same boat, and are running into trouble using R and igraph, I hope the following video will be of some help. Using a screen capture of a Mac running OS X, I briefly demonstrate the experience of installing R and running a script with the igraph package on from an Apple vantage point. One difference is that there are a few menu options you’ll need to select when installing igraph to actually make it run. In another simple but crucial difference for Macs, you’ll need to select all the text in your script before running it. THEN, and only then, use the “Execute” command. That’s not necessary on a Windows computer, but it’s a make-or-break move on a Mac.
Why? Don’t ask me why. It’s the same old story that we’ve had for thirty years: it’s just different on a Mac.
The walkthrough video:
Please leave a comment if you have a question or need clarification, and I’d be glad to be of help if I can.