Hello

I have R version 3.6.1 on Linux and this is pretty immoveable due to dependencies of other packages. I want to install DESeq2.

I run this using BiocManager::install and it fails to install.

The problem is a dependency, Hmisc, and the reason Hmisc fails is because of a dependency, foreign, and the reason foreign fails is because it equires R>4.0.0

I can't really upgrade my R version, and in any case, moving to R 4.0 has been very difficult for all sorts of reasons.

So how can I find a version of DESeq2 that will work with R 3.6.1 and why does BiocManager::install fail on these dependencies?

Thanks Mick

R version 3.6.1 (2019-07-05)
Platform: x86_64-conda_cos6-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Scientific Linux 7.5 (Nitrogen)

Matrix products: default
BLAS/LAPACK: /exports/cmvm/eddie/eb/groups/watson_grp/software/mickpython/r/lib/libopenblasp-r0.3.12.so

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
 [3] LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8
 [5] LC_MONETARY=en_GB.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_GB.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] tximport_1.14.2 ggplot2_3.3.3

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] fansi_0.4.2         withr_2.4.1         crayon_1.4.1
 [4] utf8_1.1.4          grid_3.6.1          R6_2.5.0
 [7] lifecycle_1.0.0     gtable_0.3.0        magrittr_2.0.1
[10] scales_1.1.1        pillar_1.5.1        rlang_0.4.10
[13] vctrs_0.3.6         ellipsis_0.3.1      tools_3.6.1
[16] glue_1.4.2          munsell_0.5.0       compiler_3.6.1
[19] pkgconfig_2.0.3     colorspace_2.0-0    BiocManager_1.30.10
[22] tcltk_3.6.1         tibble_3.1.0

The foreign package comes with R (it's a recommended package) and should already be installed. I actually have two versions in my R-3.6.1 install:

> z[row.names(z) %in% c("DESeq2","Hmisc","foreign"),c(1:3,5)]
        Package   LibPath                                 Version 
DESeq2  "DESeq2"  "/share/groups/edge/R/R-3.6.1"          "1.26.0"
foreign "foreign" "/share/groups/edge/R/R-3.6.1"          "0.8-75"
Hmisc   "Hmisc"   "/share/groups/edge/R/R-3.6.1"          "4.4-0" 
foreign "foreign" "/share/apps/R/R-3.6.1/lib64/R/library" "0.8-71"
        Depends                                                                           
DESeq2  "S4Vectors (>= 0.23.18), IRanges, GenomicRanges,\nSummarizedExperiment (>= 1.1.6)"
foreign "R (>= 3.0.0)"                                                                    
Hmisc   "lattice, survival (>= 3.1-6), Formula, ggplot2 (>= 2.2)"                         
foreign "R (>= 3.0.0)"

You can see that there is a version in the site-wide directory, and that's the one you should have, and it should be there for sure. If you need to install foreign then something unusual has happened to your R installation, and it probably happened at a higher level than you (unless you have sudo privileges) can do anything about. You probably need your sysadmin to get a version like say 0.8-71 and install it where it's supposed to go, after which things should be OK.