Installation

Prerequisites

ferx requires R >= 4.2, Rust (stable toolchain), and cmake.

Dependency	Required	Notes
R >= 4.2	Yes	Package interface
Rust / Cargo	Yes	Compiles the ferx-core backend; the stable toolchain is sufficient
cmake	Yes	Used by the Rust build (Linux/macOS; bundled with Rtools45 on Windows)

The first install compiles the Rust backend. Build time depends heavily on CPU speed: about 15-30 minutes on a fast modern machine, and up to 1-2 hours on an older laptop. Subsequent installs are much faster because Cargo reuses cached artifacts.

Quick install by platform

macOS

cmake is the only non-standard system dependency. A stable Rust toolchain is sufficient.

Step 1 - Install Homebrew (skip if already installed)

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Step 2 - Install cmake

brew install cmake

Step 3 - Install Rust

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Follow the on-screen instructions to add Rust to your PATH, usually source "$HOME/.cargo/env" or restarting the terminal.

Step 4 - Install ferx from R

RStudio on macOS launches with a restricted PATH that does not include the Homebrew cmake bin directory, even when the shell profile is configured correctly. Add it explicitly before installing:

# Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3):
Sys.setenv(PATH = paste("/opt/homebrew/opt/cmake/bin", Sys.getenv("PATH"), sep = ":"))
# Intel Mac - use this line instead:
# Sys.setenv(PATH = paste("/usr/local/opt/cmake/bin", Sys.getenv("PATH"), sep = ":"))

pak::pak("FeRx-NLME/ferx-r")
# or: devtools::install_github("FeRx-NLME/ferx-r")

Without the Sys.setenv(PATH = ...) line, the Rust build fails with a cmake not found error when launched from RStudio.

Windows

Native Windows installs are supported.

Step 1 - Install Rtools45

Rtools45 ships cmake and the MinGW gcc that R uses to link the package, so no separate cmake install is needed.

Step 2 - Install rustup with the GNU-ABI toolchain

Download from https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install, then in PowerShell:

rustup toolchain install stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

You do not need to rustup default it: the package build pins this toolchain automatically on Windows. The rustup default on Windows is the MSVC ABI, which is not link-compatible with Rtools’ MinGW linker.

Step 3 - Install ferx from R

pak::pak("FeRx-NLME/ferx-r")
# or: devtools::install_github("FeRx-NLME/ferx-r")

Linux

Install cmake and Rust via your system package manager plus rustup. RStudio on Linux inherits the system PATH, so no PATH workaround is needed.

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install -y cmake build-essential curl git
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"

pak::pak("FeRx-NLME/ferx-r")
# or: devtools::install_github("FeRx-NLME/ferx-r")

Verify the installation

library(ferx)
ferx_example()          # lists all bundled examples
ex <- ferx_example("warfarin")
fit <- ferx_fit(ex$model, ex$data)
print(fit)

print(fit) leads with a STATUS: CONVERGED line and bold section headers. ferx_warnings(fit) shows any warnings grouped by severity with remediation guidance.

Docker / reproducible environments

The ferx-r repo ships a Dockerfile for reproducible local or CI environments:

git clone https://github.com/FeRx-NLME/ferx-r
cd ferx-r

# Build
docker build -t ferx:latest .

# Run RStudio Server
docker run --rm -p 8787:8787 -e PASSWORD=ferx ferx:latest
# -> open http://localhost:8787   user: rstudio   password: ferx

For a minimal CI image:

FROM rocker/r-ver:4.4.0
RUN Rscript -e "pak::pak('FeRx-NLME/ferx-r')"