I use both GNU-Linux and Windows systems on a regular basis… so I’m aware of the advantages (more for GNU-Linux in my case) and disadvantages of both.

Recently I needed to analyse a database from a remote location, an Excel (`*xlsx) file.

The problem was that I couldn’t put my gdata library to work… some weird errors about a missing Perl interpreter… just needed to install one. Based on this tutorial in CRAN, I downloaded ActivePerl.

Then, I followed the instructions to install it, leaving the default options. The program sets the PATH to the interpreter, so R can finally find Perl…

Just start then a R session… Done!