Can't install R 2.15 and r-recommended on Ubuntu

On 7 November 2013 at 15:02, Kirill M?ller wrote:
| On 11/07/2013 02:52 PM, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
| > What does, say, 'apt-cache policy r-recommended' say?
| It aims at installing the most recent version, I guess. I have fired up

Let me try again: when you run 'apt-cache policy r-recommended', does it show
you a version 2.15, and if so, does it have the particular version.release
you specified?  If it exists, you need to work with apt documentation to see
how to override the preference for a different (higher) version.

The particular call returns the following on the test system:

r-recommended:
   Installed: (none)
   Candidate: 3.0.2-1precise0
   Version table:
      3.0.2-1precise0 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
         500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/marutter/rrutter/ubuntu/ 
precise/main amd64 Packages
      3.0.1-6precise0 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      3.0.1-5precise0 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      3.0.1-3precise 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      3.0.1-1precise0precise2 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      3.0.1-1precise0 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      3.0.0-2precise 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      2.15.3-1precise0precise1 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      2.15.2-1precise0 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      2.15.1-1precise2 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      2.15.0-1precise0 0
         500 http://cran.rstudio.com/bin/linux/ubuntu/ precise/ Packages
      2.14.1-1 0
         500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe amd64 
Packages

The package.version I have requested (=2.15.3-1precise0precise1) is 
available. However, the dependencies in r-recommended only state a 
minimum version of the dependent packages. Also, when I look at 
`apt-cache show r-cran-mass=7.3-26-1raring0` (the oldest version in 
CRAN), it tells me that it depends on r-base-core (>= 3.0.0-2raring). So 
it wouldn't even work in theory.

Is it possible to arrange to always keep, for each R version available 
in the Ubuntu archive, the most recent version of each "recommended" 
package?

It should work in theory as you showed, but I a) never had a need for that
and never done it and b) don't know anybody else who did.

Thanks for your feedback.


-Kirill