[R] R CMD check fails at package dependencies check on Fedora Core 5, works on other systems

[Robert King]

I'm testing a FC5 machine for use in a student lab.  R 2.3.1 is installed and 
seems to work fine.  There is one peculiarity - the logins are authenticating 
to a server, and a "verbose" flag is set somewhere, leading to lots of 
spurious messages like this

request done: ld 0xa227598 msgid 1

which may be confusing R.

However, R CMD check seems to fail for packages with no dependencies at the 
dependencies check stage.

I've tried this with two packages, my own gld and also zipfR.  Both fail in 
the same way.

[Desktop]$ R CMD check zipfR_0.6-0.tar.gz
* checking for working latex ... OK
request done: ld 0x8dfb170 msgid 1
request done: ld 0x8dfb170 msgid 2
* using log directory '/home/rak776/Desktop/zipfR.Rcheck'
* using Version 2.3.1 (2006-06-01)
* checking for file 'zipfR/DESCRIPTION' ... OK
* checking extension type ... Package
* this is package 'zipfR' version '0.6-0'
* checking package dependencies ... ERROR
[Desktop]$ R CMD check gld
* checking for working latex ... OK
* using log directory '/home/rak776/Desktop/gld.Rcheck'
* using Version 2.3.1 (2006-06-01)
* checking for file 'gld/DESCRIPTION' ... OK
* this is package 'gld' version '1.8'
* checking package dependencies ... ERROR

Both these work on two other systems - one a debian/sarge AMD64 and a 
debian/sarge i386

A package with dependencies checks for dependencies correctly - for example 
ade4:

Desktop]$ R CMD check ade4_1.4-1.tar.gz
* checking for working latex ... OK
request done: ld 0x994b168 msgid 1
request done: ld 0x994b168 msgid 2
request done: ld 0x994b168 msgid 3
* using log directory '/home/rak776/Desktop/ade4.Rcheck'
* using Version 2.3.1 (2006-06-01)
* checking for file 'ade4/DESCRIPTION' ... OK
* this is package 'ade4' version '1.4-1'
* checking package dependencies ... ERROR
request done: ld 0xa458598 msgid 1
request done: ld 0xa458598 msgid 2
request done: ld 0xa458598 msgid 3
Packages required but not available:
  waveslim splancs maptools spdep pixmap ape tripack

Does anyone have ideas on what is going wrong?

Regards,
Robert King
-- 
Robert King, Statistics, School of Mathematical & Physical Sciences,
University of Newcastle, Australia
Room V133  ph +61 2 4921 5548
Robert.King at newcastle.edu.au   http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/~rking/