Meaning of common message when install a package "There are binary versions available but the source versions are later"

[jcblum]

Jumping in (and quoting myself, to boot! ), but in case it's helpful, here's a bit of related discussion from another thread:

@jcblum

Many R packages are written in R. Since R is an interpreted language, source code written in R doesn't have to be translated into system-specific machine language before running. However, some R packages have significant portions written in other, compiled languages, usually C/C++ or Fortran. These languages need accessory software tools to translate ("compile") their source code into machine language that can run on a particular system.

You have two choices when distributing code for compiled languages: you can distribute source code only, and expect the user to have the right compiler software (and skills) to build system-specific runnable code themselves. Or you can prepare compiled "binaries" matched against common systems, so that people can run code without having to know how to compile it.

CRAN uses a mixed strategy. On UNIX/Linux, only source code is distributed and all packages are compiled from source during installation (for packages written entirely in R, this is trivial!). For Windows and Mac, CRAN makes pre-compiled binaries available. On Windows, install.packages() will only install precompiled binaries, unless explicitly forced to install from source (you can read a lot more about this in the R Installation and Administration guide). In order to install from source on Windows, you first need to install a set of software dependencies called the "RTools " (available from that link).

@jcblum

You might consider installing RTools for Windows in case you run into any packages that still need to be installed from source (binaries are not always available). On Windows, to install a package from source you will need to explicitly run install.packages("packageName", type = "source") .