fix(alpine): declare xz-dev so R can start after a clean install #10
2026-09-18
fix(alpine): declare xz-dev so R can start after a clean install
libR.so links against liblzma, but the Alpine package never declared a
dependency on it. The list carried `# - liblzma-dev`, the Debian name,
which does not exist on Alpine and so had been commented out rather than
translated. The result is a package that installs cleanly and then fails
on every invocation:
Error loading shared library liblzma.so.5: No such file or directory
(needed by /opt/R/4.6.1/lib/R/lib/libR.so)
Error relocating /opt/R/4.6.1/lib/R/lib/libR.so: lzma_code: symbol not found
Replace it with xz-dev, the Alpine equivalent, which pulls xz-libs, the
package that owns liblzma.so.5. Keep the -dev variant to match every other
entry in the list, which are -dev so that CRAN packages can be installed
from source on the target.
Verified by repackaging the currently published r-4.6.1_1_aarch64.apk with
this dependency list and installing it into a clean alpine:3.22 container:
R now starts with no manually added packages, where before it did not.