Installing R and RStudio

You'll install two things: R itself (the language), and an IDE (the application you work in).

1. Install R

Download R from CRAN at cran.r-project.org — choose your operating system and run the installer. This course targets R 4.x; install the latest release.

• Windows — run the .exe installer with the default options.
• macOS — download the .pkg for your Mac (Apple silicon or Intel) and run it.
• Linux — follow the instructions on CRAN for your distribution (for example, the r-base package on Ubuntu, from CRAN's repository for the latest version).

2. Install an IDE

• RStudio Desktop (free, from posit.co) — the most widely used R IDE, with a console, script editor, environment viewer, plot pane, and help all in one window.
• Positron (free, also from Posit) — a newer data-science IDE that supports both R and Python, built on the same foundations as VS Code.

Either works for this course.

Check the installation

Open RStudio or Positron. The console shows the R version when it starts. You can also type:

R.version.string

[1] "R version 4.6.1 (2026-06-24 ucrt)"

Your version and date will match what you installed.

No installation at all

Posit Cloud (posit.cloud) runs RStudio in the browser, free for light use — a good option on shared or locked-down computers.