[R-sig-Debian] Configure error: checking if libcurl supports https... no

[Ivan Krylov]

Hello Rolf,

Thanks for the config.log! I think we do have a path forward, but there
might be some more problems on the way.

Here's the relevant part of config.log:
http://paste.debian.net/hidden/a0821b3c/

This system is in a tricky state. There's libcurl and maybe some other
software in /usr/local. The libcurl installation in particular is broken
and prevents R's ./configure from linking to system libcurl. (I think
that the linker ends up trying to link to the static library but isn't
passed the flags to link curl's dependencies too.)

Here are some options, maybe one of them would work:

1. Run:

   ./configure \
    CPPFLAGS="-isystem /usr/include" \
    LDFLAGS="-L/usr/lib -L/usr/lib/$(uname -m)-linux-gnu"

   instead of ./configure.

   Since both the ./configure script and the compiler default to
   searching /usr/local for headers and libraries to link to, pass them
   flags to make sure that /usr and not /usr/local is searched first.
   

2. Move anything that seems related to libcurl away from /usr/local.
   This may break some other manually installed software that was built
   with libcurl that had been installed into /usr/local, but should not
   break the system.

-- 
Best regards,
Ivan