package R.basic I would like to use the fuction weighted.median() in package R.basic (and some other ones too, although this one is most important).
install.packages("R.basic") 

gives me:
package ‘R.basic’ is not available

and 
library(R.basic) 

says 
Error in library("R.basic") : there is no package called 'R.basic'

There is a downloadable version here. But, typing:
install.packages("~/Documents/R.classes_0.62.tar.gz", CRAN=NULL)

Gives 
Error in do_install(pkg) : 
  this seems to be a bundle -- and they are defunct
Warning message:
In install.packages("~/Documents/R.classes_0.62.tar.gz",  :
  installation of package '~/Documents/R.classes_0.62.tar.gz' had non-zero exit status

How to get thru ? 
 A: That's because the package doesn't exist on CRAN (see the package list).  It may have failed a build in a recent version of R.
You can install it directly from the author's site like so:
install.packages(c("R.basic"), contriburl="http://www.braju.com/R/repos/")

See Henrik Bengtsson's home page for more detail.
Edit
Just to add a little further: it looks like this package fails to build on later versions of R.  You should probably get the source and build it yourself, or else contact the package author.
A: As I can't find the original, I don't know what the exact reference of the function was, since both the question and the answer were posted in 2010 and all the pages are missing. Many things have moved on in the mean time.
As of 2014, and for the benefit of present (and, hopefully future) readers, there seems to be more than one implementation of weighted medians in R, some with very simple interfaces.
The first one that I found and which seems reasonable is in the package limma: http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/library/limma/html/weightedmedian.html
The code is also straightforward (and written in pure R), which means that you may even avoid the dependency on the packge if you are desperate.
