[R] package ‘build-essential’ is not available (for R version 3.0.2)

[Charles Evans]

Hello,

I have searched on the R-Project site, R-Help archives, and the Internet
at large, and I cannot find a solution to my problem.

I am running R version 3.0.2 (2013-09-25) -- "Frisbee Sailing" on Ubuntu
13.04.

When I try to install several packages, including quantmod, with
dependencies=T set, and I keep getting long lists of packages that
result in "installation of package 'X' had non-zero exit status".  When
I try to install X, I get another list of packages that failed to install.

After a few iterations of this, the package that I am trying to install
is listed among the packages that have failed to install.

I found a reference online to build-essential, but when I tried to
install that, I got "package ‘build-essential’ is not available (for R
version 3.0.2)".

Any hints or follow-up questions would be greatly appreciated.

C.Evans