Improve UI for installing custom binaries on Linux / WebAssembly

[JosiahParry]

Using rocker/r-ver:4.4.2 which uses noble, binaries are not installed.

Heres a sample dockerfile

FROM rocker/r-ver:4.4.2

RUN R -e 'install.packages("arcgisutils", repos = c("https://r-arcgis.r-universe.dev", options("repos")))'

ENTRYPOINT [ "R" ]

when running R and then trying to load the package it isn't found because the install.packages step failed.

The package reportedly has binaries for 4.4.2 shown at https://r-arcgis.r-universe.dev/arcgisutils

Running install.packages("https://r-arcgis.r-universe.dev/bin/linux/noble/4.4/src/contrib/arcgisutils_0.3.1.tar.gz") does work as anticipated though.

How can we install linux binaries by using the repos argument?

[remlapmot]

You've basically answered your own question.

You need to specify the Linux binary URL in the repos argument. Like in the example in the docs https://docs.r-universe.dev/install/binaries.html, e.g.

install.packages("arcgisutils", repos = c("https://r-arcgis.r-universe.dev/bin/linux/noble/4.4"))

(nb. your call to options() seems misplaced in your Dockerfile code)

[JosiahParry]

I’ll give that a further read. Thanks!
The options is properly placed. It uses the provided repos urls (posit package manager) from the container as fallback repos

[JosiahParry]

Thanks for the guidance! It would be great if the UI gave guidance here.

I injected some shoddy html into the web page to illustrate what I mean:

Posit Package Manager also has a setup page that helps with this which I think might be nice to draw inspiration from: https://p3m.dev/client/#/repos/cran/setup