[R] Problems with updating R-packages

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 31 December 2005 at 12:27, Petar Milin wrote:
| I am new in Linux and R, trying to update packages I need in my work,
| but repeatedly I failed for reasons I do not understand.
| First, I use:
| > update.packages()
| Then, I choose nearest mirror and accept update of 'Design' package:
| > Design :
| > Version 2.0-9 installed in /usr/lib/R/site-library
| > Version 2.0-12 available at http://cran.r-mirror.de
[...]
| > gcc -shared  -o Design.so lrmfit.o mlmats.o robcovf.o  -lg2c -lm
| -lgcc_s -L/usr/lib/R/lib -lR
| > /usr/bin/ld: crti.o: No such file: No such file or directory
[...]

| I am using following R under Ubuntu - Linux:
|  platform = "i386-pc-linux-gnu"
|  arch = "i386"
|  os = "linux-gnu"
|  system = "i386, linux-gnu"
|  major = "2"
|  minor = "2.1"
[...]

So did you manage to compile R 2.2.1, but you cannot compile R packages?
Interesting.

| I would be really thankful if anyone could give me explanation of what I
| am doing wrong and how can I make update.

Well, you did get a _very_ specific error message of crti.o missing. So let's
look for crti.o:

edd at joe:~$ locate crti.o
/usr/lib/crti.o
edd at joe:~$         

and then figure out where that package belongs:

edd at joe:~$ dpkg -S `locate crti.o`
libc6-dev: /usr/lib/crti.o

So Jon Baron was spot-on:  libc6-dev is what you need.  

Now, a useful search page for Debian is at
	http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages 
where the search at the bottom allows you to search all Debian package
listings -- that would allow you to identify crti.o as part of libc6-dev 
given that it cannot be found by the locate command on your machine.

Lastly, and as an aside, Ubuntu does rebuilds of the packages we maintain for
Debian. Running 'apt-cache policy r-cran-design' shows 2.0.11 being available
for Ubuntu breezy. Debian itself has 2.0.12 in testing and unstable. So this
particular one you could also install as a package.



-- 
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. 
                                                  -- Thomas A. Edison