R help - May 2022 - GSL update fails configuration

Installed on this workstation is gsl-2.1-x86_64-1.

When I attempt to update the gls package it fails:
checking for gsl-config... /usr/bin/gsl-config
checking if GSL version >= 2.1... checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables... 
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... none needed
configure: error: Need GSL version >= 1.16
ERROR: configuration failed for package ?gsl?

Since GSL-2.1 is found on line 2, why is there the error on line 11 that
gsl
>= 1.16 is needed and not found?
What am I missing here?

Regards,

Rich

? Thu, 19 May 2022 07:38:45 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> ?????:
> Since GSL-2.1 is found on line 2, why is there the error on line 11
> that gsl >= 1.16 is needed and not found?
In the current CRAN version of the package, the stated dependencies are
in wild disagreement with each other:
https://github.com/RobinHankin/gsl/issues/17

DESCRIPTION says that GSL >= 2.1 is required, ./configure error message
asks for >= 1.16, but the actual test is for GSL >= 2.5:
https://github.com/cran/gsl/blob/78211300997576f89fae61caada64483dc2538d1/configure.ac#L27

(Well, it's intended to test for >=2.5, but seems to test for any minor
version of 5 and above instead.)

I'm not sure which GSL features the package actually makes use of. You
can either try patching ./configure to actually check for GSL >= 2.1
and rebuilding the package (at which point something else may fail) or
upgrade GSL to >= 2.5.

-- 
Best regards,
Ivan