[R] Installing rpy2 on Red Hat 6

[Marc Schwartz]

> On Jul 20, 2017, at 7:53 AM, Larry Martell <larry.martell at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I need to install rpy2 on RHEL6. The version of R in the 6 repos is
> 3.0, and rpy2 does not work with that version. I installed R 3.3.3
> following the directions here:
> https://oguya.ch/posts/2017-03-18-building-R-on-rhel-6/. But even with
> 3.3.3 it's still failing. Using pip it fails with:
> 
> /usr/local/lib64/R/lib/libR.a(CommandLineArgs.o): could not read
> symbols: Bad value
> 
> and installing from source it fails with:
> 
> /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lr_utils
> 
> Anyone know how I can get rpy2 working on RHEL6?
> 
> (I did post to the rpy mailing list and also on SO, but did not get
> any answers.)
> 


Hi,

For future reference, posts regarding R and RHEL/Fedora and derivatives should to go R-SIG-Fedora:

  https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-fedora

From looking at the EPEL repo for RHEL 6:

  http://mirror.sjc02.svwh.net/fedora-epel/6/x86_64/

there are R 3.4.0 RPMS there since May. So:

  sudo yum install R

should get you R 3.4.0 if you have the EPEL repos properly configured.

From a review of the rpy2 page, it would seem that 3.2+ should be ok. If so, I would recommend installing the R RPMS for 3.4.0 from the EPEL and save yourself the hassle and potential issues of building from source.

Regards,

Marc Schwartz