I'm new to using RStudio server, and I had a few questions I didn't find answers to elsewhere. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask these questions; I'm sorry if it's not, and please point me to the right forums.
I work in a team who use RStudio server for most of their data analytical jobs. I am also used to working with a customized RStudio Desktop, with my own appearance, layout, fonts, working directories etc. in place. I wanted to make these changes on the RStudio Server as well, but I wasn't sure if these changes would affect other users as well.
Another thing I wasn't sure of was the location of the default directory, and also creating my own directory on the server. If I wanted to install a package, would it install in a way that other users also would have access to it? What is the default directory it would download to, and how can I specify my own directory to save the downloaded packages in, on the server?
Also apologize for the naivete of the questions! I'm worried about breaking the server while I learn how to work on it!
They won't! Every user gets their own set of preferences.
The default directory will be your user home directory, just like on RStudio Desktop. We do recommend creating a separate directory for each project to help keep things organized.
No, it won't. On RStudio Server, there is a system library (which contains packages installed with R itself, and to which all users have read access), and a user library (which contains any packages you have installed yourself).
Ordinary users don't have access to write to the system library; they can only write to their own private user libraries.
R will set up a user library for you, so you don't have to do this yourself. Run .libPaths() in R to see what it is. You can also change it if you prefer a different location.