diff --git a/.ci/test_r_package_solaris.sh b/.ci/test_r_package_solaris.sh
index bf051476a011..1daabf08d91a 100755
--- a/.ci/test_r_package_solaris.sh
+++ b/.ci/test_r_package_solaris.sh
@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
-sh build-cran-package.sh || exit -1
-
 apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y \
   libcurl4-openssl-dev \
   libxml2-dev \
   libssl-dev
 
-log_file="rhub_logs.txt"
 Rscript -e "install.packages('rhub', dependencies = c('Depends', 'Imports', 'LinkingTo'), repos = 'https://cran.r-project.org', Ncpus = parallel::detectCores())" || exit -1
 
+sh build-cran-package.sh || exit -1
+
+log_file="rhub_logs.txt"
 Rscript ./.ci/run_rhub_solaris_checks.R lightgbm_*.tar.gz $log_file || exit -1
diff --git a/.github/workflows/r_solaris.yml b/.github/workflows/r_solaris.yml
index 32184552b836..c717d57e5b22 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/r_solaris.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/r_solaris.yml
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ jobs:
     name: solaris-cran
     timeout-minutes: 120
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
-    container: rocker/r-base
+    container: wch1/r-debug
     env:
       SECRETS_WORKFLOW: ${{ secrets.WORKFLOW }}
     steps:
@@ -19,7 +19,6 @@ jobs:
           apt-get update
           apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y \
             curl \
-            git \
             jq
       - name: Checkout repository
         uses: actions/checkout@v2.4.0
diff --git a/.github/workflows/r_valgrind.yml b/.github/workflows/r_valgrind.yml
index e2b80ea6ef2e..d2e2fc0c2be9 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/r_valgrind.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/r_valgrind.yml
@@ -19,7 +19,6 @@ jobs:
           apt-get update
           apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y \
             curl \
-            git \
             jq
       - name: Checkout repository
         uses: actions/checkout@v2.4.0