environment.yml fails on macs (can't fetch pymer4 + rpy2)

[andportnoy]

Seems like a common issue when moving across OSs:
datitran/object_detector_app#41
conda/conda#6073

[andportnoy]

Essentially this happens because certain packages have certain versions built only for specific architectures.

[andportnoy]

Why conda env create fails on Macs

pymer4 requires rpy2 greater than 2.9.4, but the latest available version of r/rpy2 for Mac is 2.9.1.

Possible solutions:

• use a different channel (conda-forge has 2.9.4)
• file an issue with rpy2 to ask them to update their package on conda
• ask contributors to install rpy2 with pip

[andportnoy]

I tried using conda-forge for the updated version of rpy2, but having the following in environment.yml still results in more packages (like R 3.4.1, an older version) getting installed from conda-forge:

channels:
    - defaults
    - aportnoy
    - conda-forge

This is a potential solution, but we are pulling in too many packages from conda-forge, which might clash in unexpected ways with the default packages.

There is a conda issue and a merged pull request that allows specifying channel + package versions, but will only be available in conda 4.6.0, which hasn't been released yet.

[andportnoy]

I filed an rpy2 issue asking them to update the Anaconda package: https://bitbucket.org/rpy2/rpy2/issues/497/conda-package-for-rpy2-294-for-osx64

[andportnoy]

For now the solution is to only develop on Linux if you want to use lmer.

[andportnoy]

rpy2 maintainer Laurent Gautier says Anaconda people handle the update process. Filed an issue with them asking to update rpy2 for Mac.

[andportnoy]

rpy2 2.9.4 is now available on Anaconda, and the environment builds successfully. Running test_epochs.py::test_smoke_lmeron my Mac results in an Abort trap: 6, however.