Install R and RStudio on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04

Question: How can I easily install R and RStudio on Ubuntu 22.04/20.04/18.04 Linux distribution?. R is a programming language commonly used for statistical computing and graphical representation of data. RStudio is a set of integrated tools designed to help R developers be more productive.

Rstudio is the chief integrated development environment for R with a variety of robust tools for plotting, viewing history, debugging and managing your workspace. You can choose the edition to run – open source or commercial.

Key Features of RStudio

• Runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Syntax highlighting, code completion, and smart indentation
• Integrated support for Git and Subversion
• Execute R code directly from the source editor
• Quickly jump to function definitions
• Easily manage multiple working directories using projects
• Integrated R help and documentation
• Interactive debugger to diagnose and fix errors quickly
• Extensive package development tools
• Support for interactive graphics with Shiny and ggvis
• Supports authoring HTML, PDF, Word Documents, and slide shows

By choosing the commercial edition, you get additional features such as Access to priority email support and 8 hour response during business hours (ET). Learn more about RStudio editions and features.

Here in this article, we’ll dive to the installation of Open source edition of RStudio released under AGPL License.

Step 1: Update system

Like always, update system package index, and optionally upgrade all installed packages to latest.

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y upgrade

Step 2: Install R Programming Language

We need to install r-base package which contains the basic R functions that let you perform arithmetic operations and basic programming in R. Use the command below to install.

sudo apt -y install r-base

Step 3: Download and Install RStudio

Now visit the  RStudio downloads page to grab the latest release of RStudio for Debian based Linux distributions.

Ubuntu 20/Debian 11:

wget https://download1.rstudio.org/electron/focal/amd64/rstudio-2023.06.1-524-amd64.deb
sudo apt install -f ./rstudio-2023.06.1-524-amd64.deb

Ubuntu 22

wget https://download1.rstudio.org/electron/jammy/amd64/rstudio-2023.06.1-524-amd64.deb
sudo apt install -f ./rstudio-2023.06.1-524-amd64.deb

Proceed with the installation when prompted:

The following additional packages will be installed:
  lib32gcc-s1 lib32stdc++6 libc6-i386 libclang-10-dev libclang-common-10-dev libclang-dev libclang1-10 libgc1c2 libllvm10 libobjc-9-dev libobjc4 libpq5 libxcb-xkb1 libxkbcommon-x11-0 libxkbcommon0
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  lib32gcc-s1 lib32stdc++6 libc6-i386 libclang-10-dev libclang-common-10-dev libclang-dev libclang1-10 libgc1c2 libllvm10 libobjc-9-dev libobjc4 libpq5 libxcb-xkb1 libxkbcommon-x11-0 libxkbcommon0
  rstudio
0 upgraded, 16 newly installed, 0 to remove and 91 not upgraded.
Need to get 51.2 MB/168 MB of archives.
After this operation, 1169 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

Step 4: Launch RStudio on Ubuntu

Launch RStudio from Applications search section of your Desktop Environment or from the terminal.

For terminal, run:

$ rstudio

Ubuntu 22.04 app crash fix (unlikely)

If on Ubuntu 22.04 you experience issues while trying to start the application. First install openssl 1.1 like below.

wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl1.1_1.1.1l-1ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./libssl1.1_1.1.1l-1ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb

Once done launch Rstudio without sandbox

rstudio --no-sandbox

Its UI looks like this.

Nice!. Your installation of R and RStudio on Ubuntu / Debian and Linux Mint has been successful. Our next guide will cover the same setup on CentOS and Fedora. Stay tuned by subscribing to our weekly newsletter and following us on social media pages.

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