[R] ubuntu installation: can't find ldpaths

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 24 September 2008 at 15:35, Paul Murtaugh wrote:
| I'm trying to install R under Ubuntu 7.10 (gutsy; Linux 
| 2.6.22-15-generic x86_64). Following the instructions at 
| http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/README, I installed r-base, 
| r-base-core, and r-base-dev without any problems. When I open R, 
| however, I get the message "Can't open /usr/lib64/R/etc/ldpaths".
| 
| That file is linked to /etc/R/ldpaths, which doesn't exist on my system.

It should. Checking on the amd64 system with R I can access quickly:

|    root# ls -l /usr/lib64/R/etc/ldpaths
|    2008-09-24 13:44 /usr/lib64/R/etc/ldpaths -> /etc/R/ldpaths
|    root# ls /etc/R
|    root#

edd at xmcorsairs:~$ dpkg -L r-base-core | grep ldpath
/etc/R/ldpaths
/usr/lib/R/etc/ldpaths
edd at xmcorsairs:~$ ls -l /etc/R/ldpaths /usr/lib/R/etc/ldpaths
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 370 2008-06-23 12:05 /etc/R/ldpaths
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  14 2008-08-18 10:05 /usr/lib/R/etc/ldpaths -> /etc/R/ldpaths
edd at xmcorsairs:~$


| In fact, there doesn't appear to be an 'ldpaths' file anywhere, other 
| than a link to /etc/R/ldpaths from another directory.
| 
|    root# find / -name 'ldpaths' -print
|    /usr/lib/R/etc/ldpaths
|    root at tabby:~# ls -l /usr/lib/R/etc/ldpaths
|    2008-09-24 13:44 /usr/lib/R/etc/ldpaths -> /etc/R/ldpaths
| 
| Can anyone help?  Thanks in advance.

I'd suggest a purge of r-base-core (which may imply a purge of its dependents
as well) and a re-install.  The package should have a file /etc/R/ldpath (as
Debian and Ubuntu prefer configuration files under /etc) with a link back to
where R expects it:
edd at xmcorsairs:~$ R RHOME
/usr/lib64/R
edd at xmcorsairs:~$ ls -l /usr/lib64
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 2008-08-18 07:06 /usr/lib64 -> lib
edd at xmcorsairs:~$ ls /usr/lib/R/
bin  COPYING  etc  lib  library  modules  NEWS  share  site-library  SVN-REVISION
edd at xmcorsairs:~$

which is /usr/lib/R/etc even though R thinks it is in /usr/lib64 -- which is
just a link to /usr/lib.

Hope this helps, Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.