[R-sig-Debian] Regarding R_LIBS_USER

Johannes Ranke
Thu, 06 Jul 2017 09:43:22 -0000

Hi,

> I have used such settings (such as un-setting R_LIBS_USER or its
> predecessors) for over a decade, it just works (if you give write
> permissions). It clearly helps us at work because everybody sees by
> the default the same packages. I have also spoken with different R
> Core members and several find the default installation below $HOME and
> in a versioned directory less than ideal as well.  But it ensures
> writeability. Which I cannot do easily from the package.

Could the package make /usr/local/lib/R/site-library owned by a dedicated
group, e.g. rlibs, so people could just adduser $USER rlibs? I do not see why
R users should read logs, which is what the adm group was apparently made for.

And then, this tip could be given when install.packages() fails, in addition
to the option to create a user (but not version) specific library. Usually R
libraries are not version specific, even though in the case of R 3.0.0 and
3.4.0 compatibility was interrupted.

> So maybe the change was too abrupt, and I think I may revert it. I
> generally prefer for packagers like myself to not divert from upstream
> unless they have good reasom or are unintrusive (and eg the added
> tab-completion we have here is both).  But leaving newbies without
> installable directories is bad, as is possibly hiding existing
> installations.

I also like the idea of multiuser libraries, and in general the idea is that
the most current package versions play well together, and are better then
earlier versions. If this should not be the case, this should be an
exceptional situation, which may warrant a user specific library.

So an alternative to reverting the change would be to keep your change, but to
give better support for people that

a) have user (and version) specific libraries that were created from within R
in the past ("do you want to create a personal library instead")

b) want to use personal libraries for some good reason

via this list and maybe also via improved messages from R for the case that
install.package() fails.

Johannes