R

Installed packages:

• r-base → Core R environment (interpreter, standard libraries, docs).
• r-base-dev → Development tools to build and compile R packages from source. Includes compilers, headers, and common build dependencies.

Repository maintained by Michael Rutter.

Starting R

Start an interactive session:

R

Exit with:

q()

Important Files & Directories

• Binaries: /usr/bin/R
• Core libraries: /usr/lib/R
• User site-library (packages): /usr/local/lib/R/site-library
• Configurations: /etc/R (system-wide configs like Rprofile.site, Renviron)

Installing Packages

From Ubuntu repositories (system-wide):

sudo apt install r-cran-ggplot2

From R console (latest from CRAN):

install.packages("ggplot2")

Verification

Check installed version:

R --version

List installed packages in R:

installed.packages()

Use a Dedicated Non-Root User (Recommended)

For better security and to prevent accidental system changes, you should create and use a non-root user for development.

Run the following commands to create a new user (e.g., user) and set their password (replace user with your preferred username):

useradd -m -s /bin/bash user
passwd user

(Optional) Add user to sudo group:

usermod -aG sudo user

Switch to the new user:

su - user