How to Manually Install R 4.1.2 on CentOS 7

CentOS 7 is an old distro which does not have the new developer tools. In order to install the latest R 4.1.2, I need to install a newer devtoolset.

1. Download the scl repo rpms
   

   wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/extras/x86_64/Packages/centos-release-scl-rh-2-3.el7.centos.noarch.rpm
   wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/extras/x86_64/Packages/centos-release-scl-2-3.el7.centos.noarch.rpm

2. Install the rpms.
   

   sudo rpm -ivh centos-release-scl-rh-2-3.el7.centos.noarch.rpm
   sudo rpm -ivh centos-release-scl-2-3.el7.centos.noarch.rpm

3. Install scl.
   

   sudo yum install centos-release-scl

4. Install devtoolset 7.
   

   sudo yum install devtoolset-7

5. Enable devtoolset 7.
   

   sudo scl enable devtoolset-7 bash

6. Download R 4.1.2.
   

   wget https://cran.r-project.org/src/base/R-4/R-4.1.2.tar.gz

7. Extract R 4.1.2.
   

   tar xvf R-4.1.2.tar.gz

8. Change directory to it.
   

   cd R-4.1.2/

9. Configure the make environment. The arguments are optional.
   

   ./configure --prefix=/share/apps/R-4.1.2 --enable-R-shlib

10. Make and install it. This takes a while.
    

    make
    make install