[R-sig-Debian] /etc/R/Renviron doesn't set R_LIBS_USER anymore

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 2 July 2017 at 23:24, Kirill Müller wrote:
| On 02.07.2017 22:01, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
| > On 2 July 2017 at 21:39, Kirill Müller wrote:
| > | Hi
| > |
| > | An upgrade to R 3.4.1 on Ubuntu removed the default setting of
| > | R_LIBS_USER in /etc/R/Renviron. What's the rationale behind this? Thanks.
| >
| > Pretty much exactly what I told you in person last week :)
| >
| > - idea is to prefer /usr/local/lib/R/site-library/
| > - multi-user more important than per-user
| >
| > Also see https://bugs.debian.org/866768
| >
| > The transition may be too harsh though. I did not consider the possibility of
| > /usr/local/lib/R/site-library/ *not* being writeable.  So what I could do is
| > to re-add the per-user directory as a fall-back after the preferred
| > /usr/local/lib/R/site-library.
| Thanks. The site-library is owned by root/staff on my system, and my 
| user isn't member of the staff group (Ubuntu 17.04). I'm not sure how 
| this looks on a factory-fresh install, but IMO users should be able to 
| just use install.packages().

You should (as the local admin) set up appropriate groups and policies.

In the simplest case, one addgroup would do.

Worst case you can also

  i)   wrap sudo around the installation step,
  ii)  make the directory world-writeable or
  iii) set R_LIBS_USER in the *.site files.

I still feel (quite strongly) that this policy is the best, I do also see
that the implementation may not be ideal -- not running install.packages()
well is a bit of a, err, "setback".  Maybe I need to add it again at the end
of .libPath() ?

Dirk

| 
| 
| -Kirill
| 
| > Dirk
| >
| 

-- 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org