[R-sig-Debian] [FORGED] r-base is already the newest version (3.5.2-1bionic)

[Rolf Turner]

The silence has been deafening in respect of my latest cri de coeur 
about trying to install R via "sudo apt-get r-base".

I have been thrashing around on my own, and getting nowhere.

What I have tried is removing all traces of the "old" (installed from 
source) R from the system.  I did "whereis R" and then moved all of the 
relevant directories that appeared, into a safe-keeping "repository" 
that I created in my home directory.

I then typed “R” and got, as expected, “R: Command not found.”

I then did

  sudo apt purge r-base

and this appeared to work. Next I did

  sudo apt update

and this seemed to run OK; lots of output, but no error messages.

Finally I did

  sudo apt-get install r-base

This too seemed to run without complaint. It *said* it was installing 
r-base 3.5.2:

> Preparing to unpack .../r-base_3.5.2-1bionic_all.deb ...
> Unpacking r-base (3.5.2-1bionic) ...
> Setting up r-base (3.5.2-1bionic) ...


But when, after having done this install, I typed "R" I again got
"R: Command not found."

And typing "whereis R" produced "R:". I.e., nowhere.

The install process does not seem to have produced an executable R.
I don't understand this.

There must be something else that I need to do. What is it?  Can I force 
the install to create the executable?  How?

Can't somebody *please* help me?  I am going mad!

cheers,

Rolf Turner

P.S.  Elsewhere I was advised to trying using "checkinstall" to install 
the old R (i.e. 3.5.1) from source.  This, I was told, would install the 
old R version in such a way that it would be compatible with the "sudo 
apt-get install" paradigm.

After a *great* deal of travail I managed to get

     sudo checkinstall make install

(command issued in the "build directory" for R 3.5.1) to work.  And work 
it did, creating an R executable as well as a *.deb file.

I then thought I'd be able to do:

     sudo apt purge r-base

to get rid of R 3.5.1 (i.e. that which I had just installed) followed by

     sudo apt-get install r-base

to put in R 3.5.2.  It all *appeared* to work; no error messages and 
again it seemed to say that it was installing 3.5.2.

But then I fired up R and just got the 3.5.1 version that I'd just 
installed using "checkinstall".  (The "purge" did *not* get rid of the 
executable and the infrastructure on which the executable depends. And 
the "sudo apt-get install r-base" command apparently did *not* create 
new infrastructure.)

Why does the universe *do* these things to me???

R. T.


-- 
Honorary Research Fellow
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276