Can 32 bit R 4.1.3 for Windows run in Boxedwine?
Opened this issue · 4 comments
Hi. I'm a novice javascript mobile user/programmer (iPad OS) who is looking for a solution to run the R programming language offline in my browser. I was excited to learn of Boxedwine's web build (18R2) that looked like it might be able to install and run the official 32 bit R 4.1.3. .exe file found at:
https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/old/4.1.3/
However, when I downloaded it and tried to import it into the shell (via Boxedwine embedded in Dustin Brett's public website):
R loaded and began to install itself until this error occurred in the log after starting:
Launching "/bin/wine" "R-4.1.3-win"
wine: cannot find L"C:\windows\system32\wineboot.exe"
err:process:start_wineboot failed to start wineboot, err 2
wine: cannot find L"C:\windows\system32\R-4.1.3-win"
I had thought that installing might work since the base installer is less than 100 MB and (per the README file) only requires an x86 machine running Windows XP or higher.
I thought if I could get R to run in my browser, I could also then capitalize on Boxedwine's ability to save files into Drop_Box as a means to store my work and would use a local sever on my iPad to serve the Boxedwine project offline.
Please let me know if someone is able to install and get 32 bit R 4.1.3 for Windows to run, and if so, please describe how you did so.
The only other options that I'm aware of to run R on a browser on an iPad are:
WebR: R programming language ported to emscripten. It runs great but is in its only very early stages of development and can only use a limited number of packages for now
RStudio-Cloud: a very professional version of R that runs in the browser but unfortunately runs only in the cloud (cannot run locally off-line) and only allows a limited amount of use for free.
Other linux emulators (e.g. copy/v86, j Linux): Both can install and run R, but like WebR can only run a limited number of R packages.
Thank you for looking into this possibility. :-)
My first suggestion would be to try it out on the windows version of Boxedwine before the web version. I was able to install R. But Rgui didn't launch. Rcmd did spit out in the log what options were available.
Usage: Rcmd command args
where 'command' is one of:
INSTALL Install add-on packages
REMOVE Remove add-on packages
I'm not sure what your chances are of getting this to work. Java and .NET currently do not work in Boxedwine because of JIT. If R is not using JIT your chances of it working are better.
Thank you, @danoon2 , for your suggestions. I installed the latest windows version of Boxed wine and also was able to install R and then was asked which R type of R.exe file I wanted to make a shortcut to. I tried Rgui (the standard option) like you did and couldn't get Rgui.exe to launch. I then tried Rterm.exe and R.exe (the other usual choices which work in the Windows cmd line) but couldn't get them to launch either. I'm not sure why-- R itself does not rely on either Java or .NET as far as I am aware (I usually use LInux or Mac version of R).
Have a good upcoming weekend.
Not sure how well this works but this is attempting to get R into the browser.
Thank you very much for mentioning that, @DustinBrett. I have tried webR and think it works very well for its early stage of development. Unfortunately, limited packages available for it now since each package (and the package's dependencies) need to be converted to Web Assembly. Until the webR developers build more packages, I was hoping to run full R in a browser on my mobile device (and not linked to a cloud) using Boxedwine. Have a good weekend :-)