Cannot build R package “png” Fedora 20

Question

I am trying to build the R package png, the repo says that libpng needs to be available.

I run a Linux Fedora 20 distro

Looks like I have it...

[root@localhost bin]# yum install libpng
Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
Package 2:libpng-1.6.3-3.fc20.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

But when I try to install it:

> install.packages("png")
Installing package into ‘/home/statquant/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/3.0’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
trying URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/png_0.1-7.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 24990 bytes (24 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 24 Kb

* installing *source* package ‘png’ ...
** package ‘png’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** libs
gcc -m64 -std=gnu99 -I/usr/include/R -DNDEBUG  -I/usr/local/include    `libpng-config --cflags` -fpic  -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches  -m64 -mtune=generic  -c read.c -o read.o
/bin/sh: libpng-config: command not found
read.c:3:17: fatal error: png.h: No such file or directory
 #include <png.h>
                 ^
compilation terminated.
make: *** [read.o] Error 1
ERROR: compilation failed for package ‘png’
* removing ‘/home/statquant/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/3.0/png’

The downloaded source packages are in
        ‘/tmp/RtmpG5MjG9/downloaded_packages’
Warning message:
In install.packages("png") :
  installation of package ‘png’ had non-zero exit status

Answer 1

For some R packages you need the corresponding development library to successfully install the R package. In your case this should do what you need

# Do the following in your terminal (not in an R session)
yum install libpng-devel

afterwards you should be able to install the R package

# Do the following in the R console (during an R session)
install.packages("png")

Answer 2

I had the same problem on Ubuntu (16.04) and solved it using

sudo apt-get install libpng-dev