Docker does not find R despite pre-built layers - r

Question

I create a docker image to run R scripts on a VM server with no access to the internet.
For the first layer I load R and all libraries
Dockerfile1
FROM r-base
## Needed to access R
ENV R_HOME /usr/lib/R
## install required libraries
RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get -y install libgdal-dev
## install R-packages
RUN R -e "install.packages('dplyr',dependencies=TRUE, repos='http://cran.rstudio.com/')"
...
and create it
docker build -t mycreate_od/libraries -f Dockerfile1 .
Then I use this library layer to load the R script
Dockerfile2
FROM mycreate_od/libraries
## Create directory
RUN mkdir -p /home/analysis/
## Copy files
COPY my_script_dir /home/analysis/
## Run the script
CMD R -e "source('/home/analysis/my_script_dir/main.R')"
Create the analysis layer
docker build -t mycreate_od/analysis -f vault/Dockerfile2 .
On my master VM, this runs and suceeds, but on the fresh VM I get
docker run mycreate_od/analysis
R docker ERROR: R_HOME ('/usr/lib/R') not found - Recherche Google
From a previous bug search I have set the ENV variable in the Docker (see Dockerfile1),
but it looks like docker installs R on some other place.

Answer 1

Thanks to Dirk advice I managed to get it done using r-apt (see Dockerfile below).
The image get then built and can be run without the R_HOME error.
BTW much faster and with a significantly smaller resulting image.
FROM rocker/r-apt:bionic
RUN apt-get update && \
apt-get -y install libgdal-dev && \
apt-get install -y -qq \
r-cran-dplyr \
r-cran-rjson \
r-cran-data.table \
r-cran-crayon \
r-cran-geosphere \
r-cran-lubridate \
r-cran-sp \
r-cran-R.utils
RUN R -e 'install.packages("tools")'
RUN R -e 'install.packages("rgdal", repos="http://R-Forge.R-project.org")'
This is unfortunately a cargo-boat solution, as I am unable to explain why the previous Dockerfile failed.