"Non-zero exit status" error downloading XML and RCurl R packages

Question

I'm having this problem:

> install.packages("RCurl")
Installing package(s) into ‘/home/username/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/2.13’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
trying URL 'http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/R/CRAN/src/contrib/RCurl_1.95-3.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 868491 bytes (848 Kb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 848 Kb

* installing *source* package ‘RCurl’ ...
checking for curl-config... no
Cannot find curl-config
ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘RCurl’
* removing ‘/home/username/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/2.13/RCurl’
Warning in install.packages :
  installation of package 'RCurl' had non-zero exit status

The downloaded packages are in
    ‘/tmp/RtmpKyAgF8/downloaded_packages’

AND:

> install.packages("XML")
Installing package(s) into ‘/home/username/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/2.13’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
trying URL 'http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/R/CRAN/src/contrib/XML_3.95-0.1.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 1724282 bytes (1.6 Mb)
opened URL
==================================================
downloaded 1.6 Mb

* installing *source* package ‘XML’ ...
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables... 
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
No ability to remove finalizers on externalptr objects in this verison of R
checking for sed... /bin/sed
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking for xml2-config... no
Cannot find xml2-config
ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘XML’
* removing ‘/home/username/R/x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu-library/2.13/XML’
Warning in install.packages :
  installation of package 'XML' had non-zero exit status

The downloaded packages are in
    ‘/tmp/RtmpKyAgF8/downloaded_packages’

Answer 1

Running over CentOS 6.4, I had just successfully follow the steps:

1. Install curl-devel and libxml with the Linux command line:

$ sudo yum install curl curl-devel
$ sudo yum -y install libxml2 libxml2-devel

2. On R console, restart the R session and install the RCurl and XML package:

>> install.packages("RCurl")
>> install.packages("XML")

3. Load the libraries:

>> library(RCurl)
>> library(XML)

Hope this save you a day!