I think there are at least 3 different possible combinations:
- Install RStudio into a conda environment as a conda binary
- Install RStudio normally, but then install R and the packages you need in a conda environment. Then activate your conda environment and launch RStudio so that it uses your conda-installed R
- Manage external conda environments via {reticulate}
Here are my thoughts on each one of these scenarios:
- This is the most difficult to achieve. As I recently noted here, it's very difficult to package RStudio into a conda binary. Until someone figures out a good way to do this, this will be an unpleasant experience (outdated RStudio and likely some features won't work as expected)
- This is manageable if you are using Linux, macOS, or Docker/Singularity. Install R and the packages you need into a conda env, activate it, and then launch RStudio. You might have to set a few env vars to get everything working right. A user posted last month on how they were able to launch RStudio inside a conda environment on Ubuntu. I also recommend checking out grst/rstudio-server-conda for running RStudio Server from inside a conda env installed in a Docker/Singularity container
- As Randy explained above, it's possible to manage external conda envs via {reticulate}. This is fine as a way to get Python packages installed, but it's not a good solution if you want holistic management of all your project's dependencies. And just my personal experience as a long-time conda user, but I have found that trying to manage conda envs via calls to {reticulate} functions to be very frustrating. I find it much easier to run conda commands directly in the terminal
All that being said, I would sum up the situation as:
- Yes, you can launch RStudio to use R that was installed inside a conda environment
- But Posit does not officially support this use case, so it might require some tinkering to get it working on your machine