Beginning with Oracle R Distribution 3.3.0, the Linux RPMs can be installed to a directory other than the default Linux R_HOME, /usr/lib64/R.
The procedure in the following example installs the Oracle R Distribution 3.3.0 RPMs to a non-default location and still allows the user to invoke the previously installed version, R-3.2.0.
The example installs the RPMs into the directory /opt/R330. It installs the following RPMs:
R-3.3.0-2.el6.x86_64.rpm R-core-3.3.0-2.el6.x86_64.rpm R-core-extra-3.3.0-2.el6.x86_64.rpm R-devel-3.3.0-2.el6.x86_64.rpm libRmath-3.3.0-2.el6.x86_64.rpm libRmath-devel-3.3.0-2.el6.x86_64.rpm libRmath-static-3.3.0-2.el6.x86_64.rpm
From the directory that contains the RPMs, install the Oracle R Distribution 3.3.0 RPMs to a non-default location using the --prefix flag:
# rpm -i *.rpm --prefix=/opt/R330
Set R_HOME to the R-3.3.0 location and add $R_HOME/bin to PATH:
# export R_HOME=/opt/R330/lib64/R
# export PATH=$R_HOME/bin:$PATH
Invoke the newly installed R-3.3.0. If you receive the following error, then add $R_HOME/port/Linux-X64/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH so R recognizes the correct versions of the pcre, zlib, xz, and bzip libraries:
# R
/opt/R330/lib64/R/bin/exec/R: error while loading shared libraries: libpcre.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$R_HOME/port/Linux-X64/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# R
Oracle Distribution of R version 3.3.0 (--) -- "Supposedly Educational" Copyright (C) The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)...
If you still want to use the previous version of R, rename the default R executable /usr/bin/R to the old R version; for example, /usr/bin/R-3.2.0:
# mv /usr/bin/R /usr/bin/R-3.2.0
Now you can invoke R 3.2.0:
# R-3.2.0 Oracle Distribution of R version 3.2.0 (--) -- "Full of Ingredients" Copyright (C) The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)...