Managing R packages under Linux

Greetings,

I need to develop a way to manage the installation and update of R
packages under linux (CentOS), hopefully using Puppet.  I've got most of
the rest of hodge-podge of install scripts and maintenance scripts
translated into Puppet and need to tackle this beast now.

R is a programming language for statistics, basically, and has a few
jillion add on package libraries, very much like PERL, and uses the CRAN
(Comprehensive R Archive Network) to provide install mirrors of the
package library all over the world.

If there were a cran2rpm program, like PERL's cpan2rpm, life would be
easy, but there doesn't seem to be such a beast.

R includes a package handler that can be used to install packages
automatically from the shell command line or from within a running R
instance, and I've got an R program to do the installs, but no good way
to manage the packages once they are installed.

What's the best way to handle this beast in Puppet?  I'd like to have
Puppet automate updating packaging as well as make sure the ones I want
are installed.

Ought I write an Rpackage type?

--[Lance]

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