[R-sig-Debian] A newbee problem compiling R in ubuntu.

Paul Johnson
2010-02-01T06:16:41Z

On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 10:02 PM, Kenneth Roy Cabrera Torres
<krcabrer at une.net.co> wrote:
> Dear R users:
>
> Maybe it is a silly question, but I'm don't understand what am I
doing
> wrong (I make the same steps, and it works).
>
> In a new karmik koala ubuntu installation I compile the last patched
> 2.10.1 version of R (r51070).
>
> Every thing was right (I install all the dev libraries I need).
>
> First I type:
>
> ./configure ?--enable-R-shlib
>
> And I obtain:
>


Dear Kenneth:

Let me share you a handy thing I learned. You can get the commands
that the R packages are built with, along with the source code.  Make
a directory (this will download a bunch of stuff)

apt-get source r-base-core

that should download a tarball of original R source code, a diff file
that is applied to build R deb, and it will open the code and apply
the diff.  You can look inside the directory, in a subdirectory
"debian", where the configure files that control package building are
kept.

If you type "dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot"  in the directory where all
that stuff got opened up (the one "above" the debian subdirectory), it
will build the debian packages.  It would not be an incredibly
difficult thing to replace that R source package with the new one you
want to use.  But I don't think you need to.  Just look in the rules
file under debian subdirectory, you will see the configure statement
they use.  I think in there you'll also find information about what
devel packages they assume you have.

I find it to be a little difficult to revise debian builds, so I don't
really mean you ought to do that. But you could.  And I often have!


--
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas