Upgrade R version 3.5 to 4.1 in CentOS 7

$ sudo yum update R
 

$ yum list installed | grep R
$ sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
 

$ sudo yum install yum-utils
$ sudo yum-config-manager --enable "rhel-*-optional-rpms"
 

$ export R_VERSION=4.1.1
$ curl -O https://cdn.rstudio.com/r/centos-7/pkgs/R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm
$ sudo yum install R-${R_VERSION}-1-1.x86_64.rpm

$ /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R --version
R version 4.1.1 (2021-08-10) -- "Kick Things"
Copyright (C) 2021 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License versions 2 or 3.
For more information about these matters see
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

$ sudo ln -s /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R /usr/local/bin/R

$ sudo ln -s /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/Rscript /usr/local/bin/Rscript

# Let's check the R version is changed

$ R

R version 3.5.1 (2018-07-02) -- "Feather Spray"
Copyright (C) 2018 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-conda_cos6-linux-gnu (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

  Natural language support but running in an English locale

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.

Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.

# Looks like the we have to create a softlink of R 4.1 instead of R 3.5 which is at:

$ which R

/storage/apps/anaconda3/bin/R

# change the R3.5 version softlinkname
$ sudo mv /storage/apps/anaconda3/bin/R /storage/apps/anaconda3/bin/R3.5

# softlink
$ sudo ln -s /opt/R/${R_VERSION}/bin/R /storage/apps/anaconda3/bin/R

# Now we have latest R version
$ R --version
R version 4.1.1 (2021-08-10) -- "Kick Things"
Copyright (C) 2021 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License versions 2 or 3.
For more information about these matters see
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.