R SIG Debian - Aug 2021 - Configure error: checking if libcurl supports https... no

Hi,

for what it's worth, on a Debian bullseye system, configuring the R 4.1.0 
tarball works fine:

$ wget https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-4/R-4.1.0.tar.gz
$ tar xf R-4.1.0.tar.gz
$ cd R-4.1.0/
$ ./configure

...
checking if libcurl supports https... yes
...

with libcurl4 and libcurl4-gnutls-dev installed. I believe this should also 
work on Ubuntu.

You can try

$ sudo apt build-dep r-base

to pull in all build dependencies specified by Dirks R debs, and try again.

Johannes






Am Sonntag, 29. August 2021, 08:49:19 CEST schrieb Rolf
Turner:
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2021 22:33:08 -0500
> 
> Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org> wrote:
> > Rolf,
> > 
> > I am truly sorry but I am getting lost in your original message.
> > Could you follow-up and describe (concisely, if possible) what your
> > question is?  Is it
> > 
> >  - installing 4.1.1 or 4.1.0
> >  - developing a package of yours
> >  - installing a package ?
> 
> Sorry if I over-egged my explanation.
> 
> * I am trying to install R 4.1.0 (the previous version of R).
>   I have the current version, R 4.1.1 (readily available as a Linux
>   binary) up and going; no problema.
> 
> * My desire to install 4.1.0 was *motivated* by a strange
>   conundrum with respect to a package that I am developing.
>   But that's *not* actually relevant at the moment.
> 
> * I successfully downloaded the source for R 4.1.0 and started
>   the configure -> make sequence.  But things came to a halt with the
>   configure error shown in the subject line.
> 
> * I then fooled around with installing/uninstalling various flavours
>   of libcurl.dev to see if I could get rid of the configure error.
>   Nothing worked.
> 
> I hope that my problem is clear now.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> Rolf

On Sun, 29 Aug 2021 10:16:16 +0200
Johannes Ranke <johannes.ranke at jrwb.de> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> for what it's worth, on a Debian bullseye system, configuring the R
> 4.1.0 tarball works fine:
> 
> $ wget
> https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-4/R-4.1.0.tar.gz
> $ tar xf R-4.1.0.tar.gz $ cd R-4.1.0/
> $ ./configure
> 
> ...
> checking if libcurl supports https... yes
> ...
> 
> with libcurl4 and libcurl4-gnutls-dev installed. I believe this
> should also work on Ubuntu.
Hmm.  I may not have had libcurl4 properly installed; tried to install
it (to make sure) and got a message about it having been "manually
installed". (No idea how the <expletive deleted> that happened, but
ne'er mind.) So I removed libcurl4, re-installed it, and tried the
configure step again.  Same result, same error.


> You can try
> 
> $ sudo apt build-dep r-base
> 
> to pull in all build dependencies specified by Dirks R debs, and try
> again.
Thanks for the suggestion.  I did

   sudo apt build-dep r-base

as instructed.

I then noticed that I could not run R --- got a "permission denied"
error.  So I next did:

   sudo apt-get install r-base

After quite a while and after an enourmous amount of incomprehensible
output had been spewed out onto the screen, the command appeared to
succeed and I could run R again.

I then tried the configure step, for building R 4.1.0 from source,
again.  Same result, same error.

Why, in the name of all that's unholy, do these things happen to *me*?

cheers,

Rolf Turner

P.S. Clearly there must be something broken in my system, but how on
earth do I track down what's wrong?

R. T.

-- 
Honorary Research Fellow
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276