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

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

Am Sonntag, 29. August 2021, 11:01:43 CEST schrieb Rolf
Turner:
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2021 10:16:16 +0200
> 
> Johannes Ranke <johannes.ranke at jrwb.de> wrote:
...
> > 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 assume this pulled in some unrelated packages. As you do not mention any 
output, I assume there was no error.
> I then noticed that I could not run R --- got a "permission
denied"
> error.  So I next did:
...
> P.S. Clearly there must be something broken in my system, but how on
> earth do I track down what's wrong?
One reason for what you see could be that you have previously compiled and 
installed curl from source (which will also build and install libcurl), and 
this local installation does not have ssl support.

One check that I can think of is to run

$ which curl

which returns

/usr/bin/curl

if you only have the Ubuntu package installed.

Johannes