Difference between using RStudio on a virtual machine and Rstudio on RServer - r

I am new in R and I am working with a datasets that has more than 5 millions of observations. So I thought that it would be a good idea to use RStudio on a virtual machine instead of using it on my local machine.
I am reading the documentation about virtual machines and RServer but it is still not clear to me if I have to use Microsoft R Server to create a VIM and then just install Rstudio as I would do in my local machine or if I can create a generic VIM and then install RStudio. Which is the correct way? Why?
If both of these options are possible, which one is the best?
Please help me. Sorry for my confusion.

You can do either. If you are using Azure (which I think you are given that you mention Microsoft R Server), there is also the Data Science VM, which will come preinstalled with RStudio and many other useful programs.
R Server is more for production workloads with R, so unless you are planning that you could probably stick with the Data Science VM. If you end up choosing this option, you can connect directly to an RStudio instance on the R Server from the Azure portal.

Related

R will not run after latest windows 10 updates

I have updated my windows and R cannot run, and hence neither can R studio. When I run R GUI it just freezes and is unresponsive. I have allowed chromium exemption to the firewall
I am on Windows Insider program and has just updated to
Windows 10 Home, Insider Preview
Evaluation Copy.Build 20190.rs_prerelease.200807-1609
Note that R GUI freezes and then shuts down on its own, so maybe the problem is R GUI and not R Studio.
I get the following errors on R studio.
This site can’t be reached
127.0.0.1 refused to connect.
Try:
Checking the connection
Checking the proxy and the firewall
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
Cannot Connect to R
RStudio can't establish a connection to R. This usually indicates one of the following:
The R session is taking an unusually long time to start, perhaps because of slow operations in startup scripts or slow network drive access.
RStudio is unable to communicate with R over a local network port, possibly because of firewall restrictions or anti-virus software.
Please try the following:
If you've customized R session creation by creating an R profile (e.g. located at ~/.Rprofile), consider temporarily removing it.
If you are using a firewall or antivirus software which guards access to local network ports, add an exclusion for the RStudio and rsession executables.
Run RGui, R.app, or R in a terminal to ensure that R itself starts up correctly.
Further troubleshooting help can be found on our website:
Troubleshooting RStudio Startup
This has been fixed with Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 20201 (released on August 26, 2020 in the Dev channel).The previous two builds were missing 64-bit APIs required by the prebuilt version of R.
Same issue.
Rollback to the previous version solves the problem.
I think it is about the update of the graphic features of Windows.
Here is what Microsoft said in the build 20190 changelog:
Improved Graphics Settings experience
While this isn’t a new feature all together, we have made significant changes based on customer feedback that will benefit our customers’ Graphics Settings experience. We have made the following improvements:
We’ve updated the Graphics Settings to allow users to specify a default high performance GPU.
We’ve updated the Graphics Settings to allow users to pick a specific GPU on a per application basis.

Using RStudio with R backend on cluster via SSH

I have access to (not authority over) a computing cluster which has R installed. Is there a way for me to use R-Studio on my local computer -- but have the code running on the cluster via SSH?
To clarify -- No I don't really have non-SSH access, no I can't install R-Studio (server or desktop) on the cluster.
In line with the hackish options #hrbrmstr mentioned...
If your aim is to run mostly non-interactive code, then you can probably establish an n-node parallel::makePSOCKcluster() on the remote machines and run each of your commands via parallel like commands. Similarly, you could use package::svSocket, see this neat demo on YouTube for more details than fit in a reasonable answer.
But, given that you said RStudio, I suspect you are thinking of interactive use, and the above would be doable (but painful). Nothing I know of will let you just pretend that the remote machine is the local machine (which is a pity to be sure). However you might be able to hack something together, with sink() etc and a server and client side loop, e.g. How to connect two computers using R?.

RStudio locally + R cloudly

Is there any way to run RStudio locally on my machine but using a remote machine running R as engine instead of my local R install?
To be clear I know that there's the possibility to use RStudio server with a web GUI but I am asking something different. I want to use both my local RStudio app connected to a remote machine running R (possibly through ssh).
Is it possible?
The High Performance Computing Task View may be of some assistance. Unfortunately, I haven't found an easy way to do this and instead simply forward a local RStudio instance on our Linux cluster over X using SSH. You'll need XQuartz if you're on OS X.
I suppose that RStudio Server is probably a better way of doing this. You can easily tie in the RStudio authentication to PAM on your Linux server to authenticate.
ssh -X user#server.com rstudio

Deploy R script in a portable usb form

I have an R script which I want to deploy so that it's idiot-proof, one click runs it etc. Unfortunately I don't have the means to pay for a server, and the environment in which it needs to run does not allow the installation of new software, only portable style apps can be run. (School computers) My script also relies on several non-base packages.
Is there any way to deploy R and my script in an easy to run way so it can be used off a usb stick?
You can install R on a USB drive and use it on any computer running the same OS. If you're using Windows, see question 2.6 of the R for Windows FAQ.
If you made the USB stick a bootable disk environment (say linux) with R installed on it, you could boot off it and do it that way.

install R on a server which cannot get access to internet

I need to install R on a windows server which does not allow me to get access outside network, i.e., internet. Can I install that as follows: I install the R as well as needed package on another machine, and copy the whole folder to that server. Will this approach work?
Yes, it will. R happily runs off a usb stick, you could use that to copy your installation over.
See here for mre:
Running R on a USB drive
R on Windows FAQ on running R off USB drive
Copying off an existing machine may make assumptions about registry entries etc. This approach seems safer to me.
Easy: Buy the new iPhone5, purchase the Tethering Data Plan, connect your new custom mini-iPhone -to -USB cable to your server, and you've got an internet connection!

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