Installation of RStudio x64 fails on Ubuntu (GNOME) 16.10 - dependency problems

Question

After a fresh install of Ubuntu GNOME 16.10, I cannot install RStudio Desktop x64 anymore.

I was trying to install the latest *.deb file via

sudo dpkg -i ./rstudio-0.99.903-amd64.deb

which resulted in

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of rstudio
rstudio depends on libjpeg62; but:
Package libjpeg62 is not installed.
rstudio depends on libgstreamer0.10-0; but:
Package libgstreamer0.10-0 iis not installed.
rstudio depends on ibgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0; but:
Package libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 is not installed.

I have tried to install libgstreamer via:

sudo apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev

which also resulted in an error:

E: Package libgstreamer0.10-dev coulnd not be found. [...]

It seems that on debian the problem could be solved, but for Ubuntu 16.10 I am not sure what to add to the sources.list to follow the same instruction. Any ideas on how to solve this?

Answer 1

This is what i done in Ubuntu 16.10

1. Download "libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0_0.10.36-2_amd64.deb"
   from https://packages.debian.org/jessie/amd64/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0/download

2. Download "libgstreamer0.10-0_0.10.36-1.5_amd64.deb"
   from https://packages.debian.org/jessie/amd64/libgstreamer0.10-0/download

3. Install two packages above

4. sudo apt install libjpeg62 libedit2

5. finally install rstudio-0.99.903-amd64.deb

I also used "sudo gdebi ..." to install packages instead "sudo dpkg -i ..."

Answer 2

EDIT: RStudio developer Jonathan points out that this is no longer necessary, as a new version of RStudio is out that doesn't have the troublesome dependency. You can get that version here: https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/preview/

For a similar solution, but one that includes additional instructions for making sure that the outdated packages don't get updated away, see the alternative below. Thanks to Mike Williamson for excellent instructions, reproduced below:

1) Get the latest R Studio Daily Build here, though note that it's not necessarily stable.

2) Install, chaning the name of the package to the one you downloaded - perhaps easiest if you go to your Downloads directory - and you'll probably find that there are missing packages:

sudo dpkg -i rstudio-1.0.124-amd64.deb

3) Download the missing packages (the lack of which causes the installation to fail):

wget http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gstreamer0.10/libgstreamer0.10-0_0.10.36-1.5_amd64.deb

wget http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gst-plugins-base0.10/libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0_0.10.36-2_amd64.deb

4) Install them:

sudo dpkg -i libgstreamer0.10-0_0.10.36-1.5_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0_0.10.36-2_amd64.deb

5) Make sure they don't get over-written at the next software update:

sudo apt-mark hold libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0

sudo apt-mark hold libgstreamer0.10

6) Install RStudio (changing name to the version you downloaded):

sudo gdebi rstudio-1.1.5-amd64.deb

7) Launch RStudio:

rstudio