Has anyone downloaded and used the microsoft based R Program for statistical computing on a mac?

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Has anyone downloaded and used the microsoft based R Program for statistical computing on a mac?

There is an open-source program for statistical computing called "R" I'm seeking to download for an online course but I wanted to check other mac users experience with it before doing so. https://cran.microsoft.com/

I have Apple Care and was going to contact them as well for guidance too but here is the first paragraph of the program that was very technical for me. I'm a new mac user AND not really clear on all of the instructions below hence my request for some help so I don't inadvertently download some virus, or malware, on my new laptop.

Intro from website in question:

Home Page About R:

R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS. To download R, please choose your preferred CRAN mirror.

Info page about Mac OS version:

This directory contains binaries for a base distribution and packages to run on Mac OS X (release 10.6 and above). Mac OS 8.6 to 9.2 (and Mac OS X 10.1) are no longer supported but you can find the last supported release of R for these systems (which is R 1.7.1) here. Releases for old Mac OS X systems (through Mac OS X 10.5) and PowerPC Macs can be found in the old directory.

Note: CRAN does not have Mac OS X systems and cannot check these binaries for viruses. Although we take precautions when assembling binaries, please use the normal precautions with downloaded executables.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.12

Posted on May 9, 2021 1:54 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

etresoft

Level 9

57,896 points

May 10, 2021 1:36 PM in response to micamica21

You are looking at a mirror of the R repository site. It just happens to be hosted at Microsoft. But otherwise, R has nothing to do with Microsoft. There are other mirrors all over the world.

After downloading R, you will probably want to download RStudio for Mac: https://www.rstudio.com

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Answer 2

etresoft

Level 9

57,896 points

May 10, 2021 6:29 PM in response to micamica21

micamica21 wrote:

OK Thanks! I had seen the mirror site page & found the version closest to me. the terms were all new to me so I wanted to get a little more guidance on what I was getting myself (or my mac) into. Much appreciated!

Years ago, when everyone had dial-up modems, finding a close mirror site was a bigger deal. It doesn't matter anymore. There are still a few "old school" sites that use these "mirror sites". Most people today just use a content delivery network like AWS, Akamai, or similar. They do the same thing, but do all of those details for you.

As to whether R is something you want to get yourself into, that is an entirely different question. R is very popular. It is one of the open-source statistical packages that are becoming more popular as opposed to the older proprietary Stata or SPSS software packages. The other big open-source stats community uses Python, along with various add-ons like Numpys, Pandas, Anacoda, and ultimately, the holy grail of Jupyter. Sometimes, I'm thankful to be old and unemployable.

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Answer 3

micamica21 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 10, 2021 5:42 PM in response to etresoft

OK Thanks! I had seen the mirror site page & found the version closest to me. the terms were all new to me so I wanted to get a little more guidance on what I was getting myself (or my mac) into. Much appreciated!

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Answer 4

micamica21 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 10, 2021 7:57 PM in response to etresoft

Ah very helpful context on the idea of mirror sites and the why. I am familiar with Stata and SPSS but R is new to me. I have heard of python too. I'm not quite sure what program I'd want to use but I am seeking to gain more knowlege in data analytics so this was a platform that was mentioned as extra credit /background info I can use on a self taught online course. Your wisdom is appreciated! :)

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Has anyone downloaded and used the microsoft based R Program for statistical computing on a mac?

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