With R on Windows, you get some binary dependencies, but on Linux you need the system libraries for any package that uses an external library. R uses the HTTP headers to determine which binary package to send you and no roll-your-own package system for virus scanning and the like supports either the Conda contrib patterns nor the R HTTP code binary scheme. I think Conda used to be kind of cool, but I have the same problems, and its position was always to make a ton of assumptions about what you want to do. R is like that... Sensible and automatic defaults that you can't find or aren't told about.