[R-sig-Debian] cannot find -lquadmath

[Peter Muhlberger]

Apologies if this has been posted about recently, but I haven't been
on this listserve for a while.

I ran into a problem trying to compile Hmisc (required package for
rms) and have found a solution that I'd like to share.  The compile
fails with the message:

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lquadmath

libquadmath exists on my Debian Squeeze system (up-to-date, recently installed):

ldconfig -p | grep libquad*
       libquadmath.so.0 (libc6,x86-64) =>
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libquadmath.so.0

The problem appears to be that libquadmath.so.0 is buried in the
directory x86_64-linux-gnu where the compiler apparently can't see it.

The fix is:

cd /usr/lib
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libquadmath.so.0 /usr/lib/libquadmath.so

Now, the compile works.

Whoever is setting up R or R packages for Debian should try to insure
that users don't have to apply fixes like the one above.

Cheers,
Peter