Install R from Source

How to install R from source on a Linux server.

R is not Posit Software and is included in Third Party Materials (as defined in our EULA) and not covered under the Posit Support Agreement. If you download R, you are agreeing to their license and acknowledge Posit is not responsible for R and you are downloading R at your sole risk.

Before you begin

Note

We recommend installing R from precompiled binaries unless you need to customize how R is configured. For example, installing R at a different location than /opt/R.

These instructions install a minimal version of R without many of the additional features enabled in the precompiled binaries. Such as, automatic configuration of a faster BLAS library.

To install R with the same features as the precompiled binaries but change where R is installed, build R from source. Use the rstudio/r-builds repository on GitHub.

Install required dependencies

  • First follow the steps to enable the required and optional repositories, as listed from the Install R page.
  • Next, install the build dependencies for R:
sudo dnf builddep R
sudo sed -i.bak "/^#.*deb-src.*universe$/s/^# //g" /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt build-dep r-base
sudo zypper install \
    gcc \
    gcc-c++ \
    gcc-fortran \
    glibc-locale \
    java-11-openjdk-devel \
    libcurl-devel \
    make \
    pcre-devel \
    pcre2-devel \
    readline-devel \
    xorg-x11-devel \
    xz-devel

Specify R version

Consult with your R user group to determine which version(s) of R they would like installed and then confirm that the version(s) of R are supported by the Posit product.

Once defined, set the environment variable, shown below, to the first R version they request.

Note

All available versions of R may not be supported by each product. Please verify the supported R versions in the product guides and release notes.

For multiple versions of R, follow the remaining steps and repeat them for each R version.

export R_VERSION=4.5.0

Versions of R that are available include: 3.6.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x, 4.2.x, 4.3.x, 4.4.x

If you need to use an earlier version of R, then you will need to modify the export command shown above:

Terminal
export R_VERSION=3.X.X

Please see the CRAN index of R versions for all available versions of R.

Download and extract R

Download and extract the version of R that you want to install:

curl -O https://cran.rstudio.com/src/base/R-4/R-${R_VERSION}.tar.gz
tar -xzvf R-${R_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd R-${R_VERSION}
curl -O https://cran.rstudio.com/src/base/R-3/R-${R_VERSION}.tar.gz
tar -xzvf R-${R_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd R-${R_VERSION}

Build and install R

Build and install R by running the following commands:

./configure \
  --prefix=/opt/R/${R_VERSION} \
  --enable-R-shlib \
  --enable-memory-profiling

make
sudo make install
./configure \
  --prefix=/opt/R/${R_VERSION} \
  --enable-R-shlib \
  --enable-memory-profiling \
  --with-blas \
  --with-lapack

make
sudo make install
./configure \
  --prefix=/opt/R/${R_VERSION} \
  --enable-R-shlib \
  --enable-memory-profiling

make
sudo make install

Configuration options

Option Description
--prefix Specifies the directory where R is installed when executing make install. Change this to install R at a different location than /opt/R/${R_VERSION}.
--enable-R-shlib Required to use R with RStudio.
--enable-memory-profiling Enables support for Rprofmem() and tracemem(), used to measure memory use in R code.
--with-blas, --with-lapack Configures R to link against external BLAS and LAPACK libraries on the system. Recommended only on Ubuntu/Debian, where the alternatives system can switch the BLAS library at runtime. If unspecified, R uses an internal BLAS library that you can switch at runtime. See Configure R to use a different BLAS library for more details.

For a full list of configuration options, refer to the Configuration options section of the R administration manual.

Verify R installation

Test that R was successfully installed by running:

/opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R --version

(Optional) Configure R to use a different BLAS library

We recommend configuring R to use a different BLAS library, such as OpenBLAS, to speed up linear algebra operations. By default, R is configured to use the reference BLAS library, but you can switch this after installing R.

  • If required on Ubuntu/Debian, switch the BLAS library using the alternatives system.

    For example, to switch to OpenBLAS on Ubuntu 22, install the OpenBLAS package and run the update-alternatives command to change the default BLAS library:

    sudo apt install libopenblas-dev
sudo update-alternatives --config libblas.so.3-$(arch)-linux-gnu

  • If required on RHEL/CentOS and SUSE Linux, switch the BLAS library by replacing R’s internal shared BLAS library, located at R_HOME/lib/libRblas.so, with a symbolic link to a different library.

    For example, to switch to OpenBLAS on RHEL 9, install OpenBLAS, create a backup of R_HOME/lib/libRblas.so, and create a symlink to OpenBLAS at R_HOME/lib/libRblas.so:

    sudo dnf install openblas-devel
sudo mv $(R RHOME)/lib/libRblas.so $(R RHOME)/lib/libRblas.so.keep
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libopenblasp.so $(R RHOME)/lib/libRblas.so

For more information on configuring the BLAS library in R, refer to the BLAS section of the R administration manual.

(Optional) Install multiple versions of R

To install multiple versions of R on the same server, repeat these steps to specify, download, and install a different version of R alongside existing versions.

Uninstall

sudo rm -rf /opt/path-to-installation/
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