This is still experimental. Your code should be safe, since IPython handles saving and loading notebooks in another process, but you'll lose all your variables if it crashes.

To run IPython with an R kernel, you need at least the following:

• IPython, version 3.0 or later. If you already have a Python environment set up, install IPython using your preferred tools. If not, installing Anaconda is the quickest way to get everything you need. Earlier versions of IPython are now unsupported.
• A current R installation.

Installing from source needs additionally header files (see below).

We provide Windows and Mac OS X binary packages of all the needed packages. The packages and the kernel spec can be installed with the following lines in an R console:

install.packages(c('rzmq','repr','IRkernel','IRdisplay'), repos = 'http://irkernel.github.io/')
IRkernel::installspec()

To update packages, you have to either add the repo to your default ones in your R startup file and update afterwards as normal:

r <- getOption('repos')
r$IRkernel <- 'http://irkernel.github.io/'
options(repos = r)

Or use the repo option to update.packages() directly:

update.packages(repos = 'http://irkernel.github.io/')

Please note that during the initial development, these packages can be updated without changing the version number, which prevents updating via update.packages(). In that case, updated packages can be installed by re-running the above install.packages() line.

You'll need zmq development headers to compile rzmq.

• Ubuntu/Debian

  sudo apt-get install libzmq3-dev

• Homebrew

  brew install zmq
  # or upgrade
  brew update
  brew upgrade zmq

• MacPorts

  1. make sure an X server is installed, open a terminal and do the following:

     sudo port install zmq

  2. Direct the compiler to use MacPorts libraries using:

     export CPATH=/opt/local/include
     export LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/local/lib

• Windows

  See this bugreport for instruction on how to compile on windows.

Start R in the same terminal, and proceed as below.

You can install snapshot packages and the kernel spec via

install.packages(c('rzmq','repr','IRkernel','IRdisplay'), repos = 'http://irkernel.github.io/', type = 'source')
IRkernel::installspec()

To update your source installation, repeat the install.packages step.

If you want to compile the latest and greatest (and maybe buggiest…) from git, the easiest way is via the devtools package.

On Ubuntu/Debian, a header package is needed to compile RCurl:

sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev

Start a R session and run:

install.packages('devtools')
# Need RCurl for install_github
install.packages('RCurl')
library(devtools)
# Install the packages
install_github('IRkernel/repr')
install_github('IRkernel/IRdisplay')
install_github('IRkernel/IRkernel')
# Install the kernel spec
IRkernel::installspec()

To update the git versions, repeat the install_github('IRkernel/...') steps.

If you have IPython 3.0 installed, you can create a notebook and switch to IRkernel from the dropdown menu.

You can also start a qtconsole with an R kernel:

# “ir” is the kernel name installed by the above 'IRkernel::installspec()'
ipython qtconsole --kernel=ir

You can also substitute console for qtconsole in this command.