Either way, when dealing with someone else's cluster its better to not fiddle too much with what is already working.
Here's a not at all elegant way of install R on Rocks 5.4.3
wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/R-core-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/R-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/R-devel-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/libRmath-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/libRmath-devel-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/R-core-devel-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/libssh2-0.18-10.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.nsw.coloau.com.au/epel/5/x86_64/xdg-utils-1.0.2-4.el5.noarch.rpm wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/x86_64/CentOS/xz-devel-4.999.9-0.3.beta.20091007git.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/x86_64/CentOS/texinfo-tex-4.8-14.el5.x86_64.rpm wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/x86_64/CentOS/texinfo-4.8-14.el5.x86_64.rpm sudo yum install R-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm libRmath-devel-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm libRmath-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm R-devel-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm R-core-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm R-core-devel-3.3.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm libssh2-0.18-10.el5.x86_64.rpm xdg-utils-1.0.2-4.el5.noarch.rpm texinfo-tex-4.8-14.el5.x86_64.rpm xz-devel-4.999.9-0.3.beta.20091007git.el5.x86_64.rpm texinfo-4.8-14.el5.x86_64.rpm[..] Total size: 169 M Downloading Packages: Running rpm_check_debug Running Transaction Test Finished Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction Installing : libssh2 1/11 Installing : libRmath 2/11 Installing : texinfo 3/11 Installing : texinfo-tex 4/11 Installing : libRmath-devel 5/11 Installing : xz-devel 6/11 Installing : xdg-utils 7/11 Installing : R-core 8/11 Installing : R-core-devel 9/11 Installing : R-devel 10/11 Installing : R 11/11 Installed: R.x86_64 0:3.3.2-3.el5 R-core.x86_64 0:3.3.2-3.el5 R-core-devel.x86_64 0:3.3.2-3.el5 R-devel.x86_64 0:3.3.2-3.el5 libRmath.x86_64 0:3.3.2-3.el5 libRmath-devel.x86_64 0:3.3.2-3.el5 libssh2.x86_64 0:0.18-10.el5 texinfo.x86_64 0:4.8-14.el5 texinfo-tex.x86_64 0:4.8-14.el5 xdg-utils.noarch 0:1.0.2-4.el5 xz-devel.x86_64 0:4.999.9-0.3.beta.20091007git.el5 Complete!
Testing:
RR version 3.3.2 (2016-10-31) -- "Sincere Pumpkin Patch" Copyright (C) 2016 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform: x86_64-redhat-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. > q() Save workspace image? [y/n/c]: n
