Hi Group:

>From an R session, I wanted to update packages, and issued the command:
update.packages()
R started to update the package "foreign" and proceeded. After downloading, while it attempted to install the packages, it came up with the following error message. I could not understand the error message. Does it indicate that the problem lies with the gcc? How do I install the current version of "foreign"?

My operating system is MepisLinux, based on Debian, and the computer is a compaq presario laptop with dual booting with Win XP(the linux partition has 10 GB space, with 128 MB RAM). I have appended the R message in this mail. I could not locate the config.log file.

Would greatly appreciate  your advice in solving the problem.

/Arin Basu

<---Beginning of R command and error message--->
> update.packages()
trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/PACKAGES'
Content type `text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1' length 212630 bytes
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 207Kb

Update (y/N)?  y
trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/foreign_0.8-0.tar.gz'
Content type `application/x-tar' length 259351 bytes
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 253Kb

* Installing *source* package 'foreign' ...
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
ERROR: configuration failed for package 'foreign'
<---end of R command and error message--->

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