Can't install modules, Cannot allocate memory error?

Question

I just launched a new EC2 ubuntu t1.micro. I installed R 3.1.2 and when I try to install any module I get:

Warning messages:
1: In system2(cmd0, args, env = env, stdout = outfile, stderr = outfile) :
  system call failed: Cannot allocate memory
2: In install.packages("zoo") :
  installation of package ‘zoo’ had non-zero exit status

I read on another question that this might be because of the swap memory, but in my case the memory is set to 60 which I think should be all right.

When I run .libsPaths() I get

> .libPaths()
[1] "/usr/local/lib/R/site-library" "/usr/lib/R/site-library"      
[3] "/usr/lib/R/library"

At first R was complaining that it did not had permission to write on /usr/lib/R/library, but after I changed the directory permissions that error went away.

Any clue on how to get it to work will be appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

So I tested doing the exact same under a bigger (t1.small) instance and it worked fine. It looks like R does not play good with EC2 t1.micro instances.

The main difference between those 2 types of instances is that while the t1.micro has 0.6GB memory the t1.small has 1.7GB.

Couldn't test it under t2 type instances, they might perform better.

Answer 2

Found a workaround. You can use Rscript form command line:

Rscript -e "install.packages('urca', repos='http://cran.us.r-project.org')"

Worked with AWS, Amazon Linux, t2.micro instance.