Upgrading R

| I suppose Debian packages of "base R" are updated accordingly to R patches,
| aren't they?

No, I tend to follow R Core and make release when actual minor release are
made. On the other hand, I try to help with alpha and beta releases during
the build-up to a release.

Full details are of course in the changelog, on your Debian box in
/usr/share/doc/r-base-core/changelog.Debian.gz and on the web at
http://changelog.debian.net/r-base

Regards, Dirk

Better to have an approximate answer to the right question than a precise 
answer to the wrong question.  --  John Tukey as quoted by John Chambers