I updated my Ubuntu 16.04 machine to R 3.4.1. When installing the first non-required package (eg, lubridate), I received the message:
would you like to create a personal library 'null' to install packages into?
This occurred in both RStudio and the command-line R. I uninstalled r-base-core & reinstalled r-base and r-base-dev through apt-get, and still had problems.
I noticed that the /etc/R/ directory contained four fleeting files that existed temporarily during the installation process, but had vanished by the time apt-get install r-base r-base-dev completed. I reinstalled again to quickly grab and paste those files to the desktop. After re-installing again, I copied them into /etc/R/ with:
~/Desktop/temp$ sudo cp repositories.dpkg-new /etc/R/repositories
~/Desktop/temp$ sudo cp Rprofile.site.dpkg-new /etc/R/Rprofile.site
~/Desktop/temp$ sudo cp ldpaths.dpkg-new /etc/R/ldpaths
~/Desktop/temp$ sudo cp Makeconf.dpkg-new /etc/R/Makeconf
The second step was to uncomment the second like below, found in /etc/R/Renviron. Apparently this is a recent change in the r-base packaging by @dirk-eddelbuettel.
# edd Jun 2017 Comment-out R_LIBS_USER
#R_LIBS_USER=${R_LIBS_USER-'~/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4'}
##R_LIBS_USER=${R_LIBS_USER-'~/Library/R/3.4/library'}
I have a two-part question:
- Is the process above recommended, or should I have done something differently? (eg, along the lines of Setting R_LIBS & avoiding "Would you like to use a personal library instead?".)
- Are these two steps likely required for future R upgrades on this machine?