[R-sig-Debian] problem in install RCurl in R (Ubuntu Linux)

[Michael Rutter]

On 04/03/2011 05:58 AM, Ethan Chang wrote:
> I have some problem in running R-cran's Demography package.
> The hmd.mx function need Rcurl. I tried to install RCurl, but meet the following error:
> *********************************************************************
> ...
> * installing *source* package ‘RCurl’ ...
> checking for curl-config... no
> Cannot find curl-config
> ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘RCurl’
> * removing ‘/home/z/R/i686-pc-linux-gnu-library/2.12/RCurl’
> ...
> *************************************************************
> How to fix the problem?
> Ethan Chang

Ethan,

This line:

> checking for curl-config... no

is an indication that Ubuntu is looking for a file and cannot find it.
Many times, you need to install the foo-dev package, where foo is the
name of an Ubuntu package that shares part of the name of the missing
file.  To solve these types of problems, enter 'curl-config' into the
'Search the contents of packages' search box at

http://packages.ubuntu.com/

You will find two possible sources: libcurl4-gnutls-dev and
libcurl4-openssl-dev.  I would try installing the libcurl4-gnutls-dev
and see if that solves your problem.

Michael

-- 
Dr. Michael A. Rutter
School of Science
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
Station Road
Erie, PA 16563
http://math.bd.psu.edu/faculty/rutter