This isn't quite true. I know of several R packages that I've had to build from source on Linux and I'd be worried about installing on windows (Combinations and

This isn't quite true. I know of several R packages that I've had to build from source on Linux and I'd be worried about installing on windows (Combinations and Cranvas come to mind). Generally the packages that aim for higher performance are more difficult to install, which makes sense. Combinations: http://www.omegahat.org/Combinations/ http://www.omegahat.org/Combinations/ Cranvas: https://github.com/ggobi/cranvas https://github.com/ggobi/cranvas edit: and if, god forbid, cran kicks off one of the packages you're using or an upstream package for a package you're using, then you've got to track it down and install it on your own. (tikzDevice is the one I'm thinking of.)