djd0723 / rig

The R Installation Manager

The R Installation Manager

Install, remove, configure R versions.

• 🚀  Features
• 🐞  Known Issues
• ⬇️  Installation
• ⚙️  Usage
• ⛵  macOS menu bar app
• 📦  Docker container with rig
• 🤝  Feedback
• ❓  FAQ
• 📘  License

🚀  Features

• Works on macOS, Windows and Linux (Ubuntu and Debian, x86_64 and aarch64).
• Easy installation and update, no system requirements on any platform.
• Install multiple R versions.
• Select the default R version, for the terminal and RStudio.
• Select R version to install using symbolic names: devel, next, release, oldrel, etc.
• Run multiple versions at the same time using quick links. E.g. R-4.1 or R-4.1.2 starts R 4.1.x. Quick links are automatically added to the user’s path.
• On M1 macs select between x86_64 and arm64 versions or R, or install both.
• Creates and configures user level package libraries.
• Restricts permissions to the system library. (On macOS, not needed on Windows and Linux).
• Includes auto-complete for zsh and bash, on macOS and Linux.
• Updates R installations to allow debugging with lldb, and to allow core dumps, on macOS.
• Installs the appropriate Rtools versions on Windows and sets them up.
• Cleans up stale R-related entries from the Windows registry.
• Switches to root/administrator user as needed.

🐞  Known Issues

• On macOS, R.app often does not work if you install multiple R versions.
• On Windows you need to restart your shell or terminal after installing Rtools, for the changes to take effect.
• On Windows, rig rstudio changes the R version in the registry temporarily before starting RStudio and then changes it back after a short wait. If RStudio starts up very slowly, then the wait might be too short, and it might start up with the wrong R version.
• On Windows Rtools installation will fail if the same version of Rtools is already installed.

Found another issue? Please report it in our issue tracker.

⬇️  Installation

macOS (installer)

Download the latest release from https://github.com/r-lib/rig/releases and install it the usual way.

macOS (Homebrew)

If you use Homebrew (Intel or Arm version), you can install rig from our tap:

brew tap r-lib/rig
brew install --cask rig

You can use x86_64 rig on Arm macs, and it will be able to install Arm builds of R. But you cannot use Arm rig on Intel macs. If you use both brew versions, only install rig with one of them.

To update rig you can run

brew upgrade --cask rig

Windows (installer)

Download the latest release from https://github.com/r-lib/rig/releases and install it the usual way.

rig adds itself to the user’s path, but you might need to restart your terminal after the installation on Windows.

Windows (Scoop)

If you use Scoop, you can install rig from the scoop bucket at cderv/r-bucket:

scoop bucket add r-bucket https://github.com/cderv/r-bucket.git
scoop install rig

To update run

scoop update rig

Windows (Chocolatey)

If you use Chocolatey (e.g. on GitHub Actions) you can install rig with

choco install rig

and upgrade to the latest version with

choco upgrade rig

Note that a new rig version might take a week or two to publish on Chocolatey, so the installer and the version in Scoop might be newer.

Linux

Download the latest releast from https://github.com/r-lib/rig/releases and uncompress it to /usr/local

curl -Ls https://github.com/r-lib/rig/releases/download/latest/rig-linux-latest.tar.gz |
  sudo tar xz -C /usr/local

If you are running Linux on arm64, download the arm64 build:

curl -Ls https://github.com/r-lib/rig/releases/download/latest/rig-linux-arm64-latest.tar.gz |
  sudo tar xz -C /usr/local

Supported Linux distributions:

• Ubuntu from r-builds, currently 18.04, 20.04, 22.04.
• Debian from r-builds, currently 9, 10 and 11.

Other Linux distributions are coming soon.

Auto-complete

The macOS and Linux installers also install completion files for zsh and bash.

zsh completions work out of the box.

For bash completions install the bash-completion package from Homebrew or your Linux distribution and make sure it is loaded from your .bashrc. (You don’t need to install bash from Homebrew, but you can if you like.)

⚙️  Usage

Use rig add to add a new R installation:

rig add release

Use rig list to list the currently installed R versions, and rig default to set the default one.

Run rig to see all commands and examples.

Command list:

rig add        -- install a new R version [alias: install]
rig default    -- print or set default R version [alias: switch]
rig library    -- manage package libraries [alias: lib] (experimental)
rig list       -- list installed R versions [alias: ls]
rig resolve    -- resolve a symbolic R version
rig rm         -- remove R versions [aliases: del, delete, remove]
rig rstudio    -- start RStudio with the specified R version
rig sysreqs    -- manage R-related system libraries and tools (experimental) (macOS)
rig system     -- manage current installations

Run rig <subcommand> --help for information about a subcommand.

macOS rig system subcommands

rig system add-pak                 -- install or update pak for an R version
rig system allow-debugger          -- allow debugging R with lldb and gdb
rig system allow-debugger-rstudio  -- allow debugging RStudio with lldb and gdb
rig system allow-core-dumps        -- allow creating core dumps when R crashes
rig system fix-permissions         -- restrict system library permissions to admin
rig system forget                  -- make system forget about R installations
rig system make-links              -- create R-* quick links
rig system make-orthogonal         -- make installed versions orthogonal
rig system no-openmp               -- remove OpenMP (-fopenmp) option for Apple compilers
rig system setup-user-lib          -- set up automatic user package libraries [alias: create-lib]

Windows rig system subcommands

rig system add-pak                 -- install or update pak for an R version
rig system clean-registry          -- clean stale R related entries in the registry
rig system make-links              -- create R-* quick links
rig system setup-user-lib          -- set up automatic user package libraries [alias: create-lib]
rig system update-rtools40         -- update Rtools40 MSYS2 packages

Linux rig system subcommands

rig system add-pak                 -- install or update pak for an R version
rig system make-links              -- create R-* quick links
rig system setup-user-lib          -- set up automatic user package libraries [alias: create-lib]

⛵  macOS menu bar app

View and select the default R version in the macOS menu bar. Start RStudio or a recent RStudio project with the selected R version. Select between your package libraries.

📦  Docker container with rig (and multiple R versions)

Use the rhub/rig (also at ghcr.io/r-lib/rig/r) Docker container to easily run multiple R versions. It is currently based on Ubuntu 22.04 and contains rig and the six latest R versions, including R-next and R-devel. It is available for x86_64 and arm64 systems:

> docker run ghcr.io/r-lib/rig/r rig ls
* name   version    aliases
------------------------------------------
  3.5.3
  3.6.3
  4.0.5
  4.1.3             oldrel
* 4.2.2             release
  devel  (R 4.3.0)
  next   (R 4.2.2)

See this image on Docker Hub or GitHub.

🤝  Feedback

Please open an issue in our issue tracker at https://github.com/r-lib/rig/issues

❓  FAQ

Why does rig create a user package library?

Installing non-base packages into a user package library has several benefits:

• The system library is not writeable for regular users on some systems (Windows and Linux, typically), so we might as well create a properly versioned user library at the default place.
• Some tools need a clean R environment, with base packages only, and do not work well if user packages are installed into the system library. E.g. R CMD check is such a tool, and https://github.com/r-lib/revdepcheck is another.
• You can delete an R installation (e.g. with rig rm) and then and then install it again, without losing your R packages.

Why does rig install pak?

To be able to install R packages efficiently, from CRAN, Bioconductor or GitHub, right from the start. pak also supports installing system libraries automatically on some Linux systems.

If you don’t want rig add to install pak, use the --without-pak option.

Why does rig change the permissions of the system library (on macOS)?

To make sure that you don’t install packages accidentally into the system library. See “Why does rig create a user package library?” above.

Why does rig set the default CRAN mirror?

To avoid the extra work the users need to spend on this.

The https://cloud.r-project.org mirror is usually better than the other, in that it is a CDN that is close to most users, and that it is updated more often.

If you want to use a different mirror, you can set the repos option in your .Rprofile, so the rig repo settings will be ignored.

You can also use the --without-cran-mirror option of rig add.

Why does rig set up RSPM?

RSPM (Rstudio Package Manager) is generally superior to a regular CRAN mirror on Windows and many Linux systems.

On Linux it includes binary packages for many popular distributions.

On Windows, it includes up to date binary packages for older R versions as well.

To avoid RSPM, use the --without-rspm option of rig add.

Can rig install R without admin permissions

No, currently it cannot.

How is rig different from RSwitch?

While there is a small overlap in functionality, rig and RSwitch are very different. I suggest you look over the features of both to decide which one suits your needs better.

If you like rig and also like the extra features of RSwitch, then you can use them together just fine: changing the default R version in RSwitch also changes it in rig and vice versa. You can use the rig cli and the RSwitch app together, or you can also use both menu bar apps at the same time.

📘   License

MIT 2021-2023 © RStudio Pbc.