Install RStudio Desktop on Clear Linux
Update 2026‑10‑26: Clear Linux is history. On July 18, 2025 Intel ended support for Clear Linux OS, effective immediately (final release: 43800, July 21, 2025). The desktop Linux I use these days: Bluefin and Omarchy.
How I’ve installed (a.k.a build from src) RStudio — for now only Desktop — on my Clear Linux desktop environment — UPDATE 2019-12-29 Meanwhile there is an official bundle…
UPDATE 2019-12-29 Meanwhile there is an official bundle for RStudio on Clear Linux: https://clearlinux.org/software/bundle/r-rstudio.
To add this bundle (a.k.a install RStudio), simply enter:
sudo swupd bundle-add R-rstudioCopied
1. Install Clear Linux Dependencies
First things first. Let’s install dependencies via clear bundles…
sudo swupd bundle-add qt-basic qt-basic-dev R-basic R-extras java-basic
2. Get the latest RStudio Desktop Source Code
The RStudio Desktop needs to be build/ installed from source.
Let’s get started by cloning https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio/…
git clone https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio.git; cd rstudio
3. Install RStudio Desktop’s Common Linux Dependencies
cd dependencies/common; ./install-common; cd -
4. Install RStudio Desktop’s Qt 5.11.1 Dependecy into $HOME/
./dependencies/linux/install-qt-sdk
5. Build and Install RStudio Desktop
Finally, let’s build and install…
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DRSTUDIO_TARGET=Desktop -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
sudo make install
One thing to note though: the sudo make install step did not succeed on first run, instead failing with rather strange java errors.
A simple clean build sudo make clean and then again sudo make install solved it for me — build succeeded. :-)
6. Start RStudio Desktop
In order to start RStudio Desktop, you only have to specifiy the LD_LIBRARY_PATH like so:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/Qt5.11.1/5.11.1/gcc_64/lib /usr/local/lib/rstudio/bin/rstudio
One could certainly tweak the build to get rid of LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
For integration with GNOME desktop one might want to add an icon like so: gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/.local/share/applications/ --create-new:
[…]
Icon[en_US]=rstudio
Name[en_US]=RStudio
Exec=env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/Qt5.11.1/5.11.1/gcc_64/lib /usr/local/lib/rstudio/bin/rstudio
Name=RStudio
Icon=rstudio