r - installing ggplot2 package on ubuntu

Question

I'm on ubuntu precise pangolin running inside a VM, using R 3.1 and Rstudio 0.98.507 and I'm unable to install ggplot2

Here is the output :

install.packages('ggplot2')

Installing package into ‘/home/uwhpsc/R/i686-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.1’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
also installing the dependencies ‘colorspace’, ‘Rcpp’, ‘stringr’, ‘RColorBrewer’, ‘dichromat’, ‘munsell’, ‘labeling’, ‘plyr’, ‘digest’, ‘gtable’, ‘reshape2’, ‘scales’, ‘proto’

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/colorspace_1.2-4.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 242791 bytes (237 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 237 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/Rcpp_0.11.1.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 2003515 bytes (1.9 Mb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 1.9 Mb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/stringr_0.6.2.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 20636 bytes (20 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 20 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/RColorBrewer_1.0-5.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 10656 bytes (10 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 10 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/dichromat_2.0-0.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 84320 bytes (82 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 82 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/munsell_0.4.2.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 91026 bytes (88 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 88 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/labeling_0.2.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 9998 bytes
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 9998 bytes

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/plyr_1.8.1.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 393233 bytes (384 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 384 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/digest_0.6.4.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 79309 bytes (77 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 77 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/gtable_0.1.2.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 19667 bytes (19 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 19 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/reshape2_1.4.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 34121 bytes (33 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 33 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/scales_0.2.4.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 40093 bytes (39 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 39 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/proto_0.3-10.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 530758 bytes (518 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 518 Kb

trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/ggplot2_0.9.3.1.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 2330942 bytes (2.2 Mb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 2.2 Mb


The downloaded source packages are in
    ‘/tmp/Rtmpi3YRSS/downloaded_packages’
> library(ggplot2)
Error in library(ggplot2) : there is no package called ‘ggplot2’

Answer 1

If you dont have a swap file enabled and run out of ram the OOM (out of memory) killer will normally terminate the offending process. This exhibits itself in the manner described in the OP's question when attempting to install packages. To fix this a swap file should be enabled.

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=512k

$ mkswap /swapfile
$ swapon /swapfile

You can change attributes for the swap file like swappiness see an example here.