[R-sig-Debian] Aborted (core dumped) installing packages

[Michael Rutter]

On 03/10/2013 09:43 PM, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Carlos Solís
>>>>
>>>>    1 GB of RAM
>>>> Intel® Atom™ CPU N455 @ 1.66GHz × 2
>>>> Linux Kernel 3.5.0-25-generic
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      Thanks for the response!!!
>>
> Hi, I'm a latecomer to this thread. I don't have the answer, but I
> have some other questions. This may help you to think through the
> trouble you are seeing. I think the solution is more likely to be
> something simple than something esoteric.

Paul,

You have plenty of good advice in this email, however most of it applies 
to Ubuntu users who build from the source.  If they use CRAN or a PPA to 
install packages, 99.9% of the time things just work.  I think you are 
correct in saying that Carlos' issues have nothing to do with the R but 
something slightly wrong with his Ubuntu install.

There are a couple of points you make that do warrant discussion.

>---Snip---<
> Second, when you install deb package updatess, you need to make sure
> all your existing R packages are compatible with the R you have now.
> The binaries from R-2.15.2 packages don't cooperate.
>
> updatePackages(checkBuild=TRUE)

I do not find this to be the case.  When I update r-base (the main R deb 
packages), I do not rebuild any of the package debs.  I also maintain 
over 1000 R packages on my c2d4u PPA, and many of them are built using 
an older version of R that what is currently available, and they all 
still function.  This will likely not be the case when R moves to 
version 3.0 later this year.  But for now, all of the R packages 
available via apt/synaptic built with R 2.14 work with R 2.15 (at least, 
I have not found any that do not).

>---Snip---<
>
> Third, when installing packages in R, there is a danger because R does
> not install pre-requisites automatically.  Thus, it is best to
> remember the depends= option, such as
>
> install.packages("faraway", dep = TRUE)
>

Good advice for installing packages from source, but "faraway" does not 
have any other packages as a dependency.

> Supposing you figure that out, then you have to consider the
> possibility that you have some binary incompatibilities between your
> CPU and the packages offered by the central server.  "Atom" makes me
> curious, I don't have any of them. I wonder if there might be some
> binaries that are not truly compatible with your processor.

The ATOM (an Intel product) processor is often found on netbooks, like 
the eeePC, and some not-so speedy laptops.  I have owned two eeePCs with 
Atom processors and it has never caused a problem.  This is not the issue.

Michael


-- 
Dr. Michael A. Rutter
School of Science
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
4205 College Drive
Erie, PA 16563
http://math.bd.psu.edu/faculty/rutter
mar36 at psu.edu