How to Install R on Ubuntu 20.04

R is an open-source programming language and free environment that specializes in statistical computing and graphical representation. It is mainly used by statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software and performing data analysis.

This article covers the steps required to install R on Ubuntu 20.04.

Prerequisites #

Ensure that you have met the following prerequisites before continuing with this tutorial:

• Your system has at least 1G of RAM. Otherwise, create a swap file .
• You are logged in as a user with sudo privileges .

Installing R on Ubuntu #

The R packages included in the default Ubuntu repositories are often outdated. We’ll install R from the CRAN repository.

To install R on Ubuntu 20.04, follow these steps:

1. Install the dependencies necessary to add a new repository over HTTPS:

   Terminal

   sudo apt install dirmngr gnupg apt-transport-https ca-certificates software-properties-common

2. Add the CRAN repository to your system sources’ list:

   Terminal

   sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys E298A3A825C0D65DFD57CBB651716619E084DAB9
   sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu focal-cran40/'

3. Install R by typing:

   Terminal

   sudo apt install r-base

4. The installation may take a few minutes to complete. Once completed, verify it by printing the R version:

   Terminal

   R --version

   output

   R version 4.0.1 (2020-06-06) -- "See Things Now"
   Copyright (C) 2020 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
   Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
   ...

That’s it, R has been installed on your Ubuntu machine, and you can start using it.

Compiling R Packages #

One of the main reasons why R is so popular is the vast array of packages available through the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).

To be able to compile R packages, you need to install the build-essential package:

sudo apt install build-essential

For demonstration purposes, we’ll install a package named stringr , which provides fast, correct implementations of common string manipulations.

When started as root the packages will be installed globally and available for all system users. If you start R without sudo , a personal library will be set up for your user.

Open the R console:

R

>

Install the stringr package by typing:

install.packages("stringr")

The installation will take some time and once complete, load the library with:

library(stringr)

Create a simple character vector named tutorial:

tutorial <- c("How", "to", "Install", "R", "on", "Ubuntu", "20.04")

Run the following function which prints the length of a string:

str_length(tutorial)

[1] 3 2 7 1 2 6 5

You can find more R packages at Available CRAN Packages By Name and install them with install.packages().

Conclusion #

We’ve shown you how to install R on Ubuntu 20.04 and compile R packages.

If you hit a problem or have feedback, leave a comment below.

About the authors

Dejan Panovski

Dejan Panovski is the founder of Linuxize, an RHCSA-certified Linux system administrator and DevOps engineer based in Skopje, Macedonia. Author of 800+ Linux tutorials with 20+ years of experience turning complex Linux tasks into clear, reliable guides.

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