How to Install R Programming Language Tools on Linux Mint 20

“R” is a programming language that was designed for statistical computing back in 1993. The best thing is that this language is still being used extensively especially for data analysis purposes during research. In today’s article, I will show you how to install the “R” Toolchain on Linux Mint 20.

Installing “R” on Linux Mint 20

For installing “R” on your Linux Mint 20 system, you need to perform the following steps:

Step # 1: Update your Linux Mint 20 System:

Before installing the package that allows you to use “R” on Linux Mint 20, you have to update your system first with the command shown below:

$ sudo apt-get update

This command will update all those packages and dependencies that need to be fixed before installing any new package on your Linux Mint 20 system.

Step # 2: Install the “r-base” Package

Now when our Linux Mint 20 system has been updated, we can conveniently install the “r-base” package on it with the following command:

$ sudo apt install r-base

During the installation of this package, you will be asked once to provide confirmation for this action by typing in “Y” and pressing the Enter key on your terminal as highlighted in the image shown below:

Once the installation of the “r-base” package will complete on your Linux Mint 20 system, you will be able to use the mathematical functions of the “R” programming language on your system.

Step # 3: Check the Installed Version of “R” on your Linux Mint 20 System:

You can also verify if “R” has been successfully installed on your Linux Mint 20 system or not by checking its version with the following terminal command:

$ R --version

The version of “R” installed on our Linux Mint 20 system is 3.6.3 as shown in the image below:

Removing “R” from Linux Mint 20

If you want to remove the “R” programming language from your Linux Mint 20 system, then you will have to remove all the traces of the “r-base” package from your system i.e. the package that allows you to use the “R” programming language. This can be done by executing the following two steps:

Step # 1: Remove the “r-base” Package and its Configuration Files

First, you have to uninstall the “r-base” package and its configuration files from your Linux Mint 20 system by executing the command shown below:

$ sudo apt-get purge r-base

When the “r-base” package and all of its configuration files will be successfully removed from your Linux Mint 20 system, the execution of the above-mentioned command will terminate while displaying the following messages on the terminal:

Step # 2: Remove the Unused Packages and Dependencies from your Linux Mint 20 System:

Finally, you should also get rid of all the unused packages and dependencies that you do not need any longer after uninstalling “R” from your Linux Mint 20 system. You can do this by executing the command stated below in your terminal:

$ sudo apt-get autoremove

This command will free up all the additional space that was occupied by the unused packages and dependencies and will finish its execution once all such packages will be successfully removed from your system.

Conclusion

By following today’s tutorial, you will be able to install the “R” programming language on your Linux Mint 20 system instantly. However, as soon as you feel like you do not want to work with this language anymore, you can conveniently uninstall it from your system to free up your resources.