[R] Trouble building R2.1.0 from source on Linux: package VR

[Frank Gibbons]

Hi,

Following on from suggestions made last week, I decided to install R 2.1.0 
on my Linux machine. I'm running into a problem there however, as shown:

make[1]: Entering directory 
`/d0/home/fgibbons/tmp/R2.1.0/R-2.1.0/src/library/Recommended'
make[2]: Entering directory 
`/d0/home/fgibbons/tmp/R2.1.0/R-2.1.0/src/library/Recommended'
begin installing recommended package VR
WARNING: ignoring environment value of R_HOME
tar: Skipping to next header
tar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers
  incomplete literal tree

gzip: VR.tgz: invalid compressed data--format violated
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
ERROR: cannot extract package from 'VR.tgz'
make[2]: *** [VR.ts] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory 
`/d0/home/fgibbons/tmp/R2.1.0/R-2.1.0/src/library/Recommended'
make[1]: *** [recommended-packages] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory 
`/d0/home/fgibbons/tmp/R2.1.0/R-2.1.0/src/library/Recommended'
make: *** [stamp-recommended] Error 2

This is most unusual - I must have built R from source five or six times 
going back to 1.5.0 and don't recall any problems like this. Does anyone 
have any suggestions about where I might look for the source of this problem.

In particular, I'm interested in using package 'vsn', whose installation is 
(I believe) blocked by this problem. I downloaded the source from CRAN this 
afternoon, choosing the version 2.1.0 'stable' code. I don't have sysadmin 
privileges on the build machine, but this has never been a problem before - 
I just pass --prefix=$HOME to the configure script. FWIW, I believe the 
sysadmins use Debian.

This is a pretty time-critical matter for me (I wouldn't have chosen to 
upgrade now, were it not for my earlier problem with merge when there are 
empty labels), any assistance greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

-Frank

PhD, Computational Biologist,
Harvard Medical School BCMP/SGM-322, 250 Longwood Ave, Boston MA 02115, USA.
Tel: 617-432-3555       Fax: 
617-432-3557       http://llama.med.harvard.edu/~fgibbons