[R] R_LIBS var needed to be set after upgrade to R 4.2.2

Ashim Kapoor
2022-06-01T09:00:58Z

Dear Sir,

> > I upgraded to R 4.2.2  on Debian 10 today.
>
> Well, I assume you mean R 4.2.0 .. at least that one exists.

My bad, yes I made a typo. I did mean R 4.2.0.

>     > The R shell incantation worked fine and all libraries would load
but,
>     > I needed to point the R_LIBS variable to
>     > /usr/local/lib/R/site-library/ in order for the R --vanilla <
myfile.R
>     > incantation to find the libraries.
>
> you mean other installed *packages*
>
>     > May I ask, why was this ? I never needed to do this on any
previous
>     > upgrade to R.
>
> Well,  for me, the     R --vanilla   form also only sees the
> 29 (14 "base" + 15 "Recommended") packages that come
with R.

Has this ALWAYS been the case for you ? Even with prior versions of R ?

> Debian (& Ubuntu etc)  have used a similar setup where the
> default {R-level}  .libPaths() has contained three libraries,
> via
>
>
R_LIBS_SITE=${R_LIBS_SITE-'/usr/local/lib/R/site-library:/usr/lib/R/site-library:/usr/lib/R/library'}
>
> see
>
>    https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian/#pathways-to-r-packages
>
> also for much more.
> Note (also from the above CRAN page
>       https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian/
>    [ Remember "menu"  "Binaries" ->
"Linux" -> "Debian" ]
>
> The good thing about the Debian (and derivatives) setup is that
> it also separates (as I do) the  "packages that come with R" in
> one library (= /usr/lib/R/library) from packages that are
> installed differently.

My confusion is : Earlier R --vanilla incantation was working fine,
even without my intervening and
adding to R_LIBS. That is why I was confused.

My main query is : Is there anything special to R 4.2.0 which needs
R_LIBS to be setup seperately?

THAT is my query.

Best Regards,
Ashim