diff --git a/dev/tasks/conda-recipes/r-arrow/build.sh b/dev/tasks/conda-recipes/r-arrow/build.sh
index d8555a7232bfc..f2e832510ba60 100755
--- a/dev/tasks/conda-recipes/r-arrow/build.sh
+++ b/dev/tasks/conda-recipes/r-arrow/build.sh
@@ -6,9 +6,6 @@ export DISABLE_AUTOBREW=1
 # See https://conda-forge.org/docs/maintainer/knowledge_base.html#newer-c-features-with-old-sdk
 export ARROW_R_CXXFLAGS="${ARROW_R_CXXFLAGS} -D_LIBCPP_DISABLE_AVAILABILITY"
 
-env | sort
 export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${PREFIX}/lib/pkgconfig${PKG_CONFIG_PATH:+:${PKG_CONFIG_PATH}}"
 
-export ARROW_R_DEV=true
-
 $R CMD INSTALL --build r/.
diff --git a/r/configure b/r/configure
index 1ce39d5f3b4d9..7bbd1be7e6c9d 100755
--- a/r/configure
+++ b/r/configure
@@ -25,8 +25,6 @@
 # INCLUDE_DIR and LIB_DIR manually via e.g:
 # R CMD INSTALL --configure-vars='INCLUDE_DIR=/.../include LIB_DIR=/.../lib'
 
-set -x
-
 # Library settings
 PKG_CONFIG_NAME="arrow"
 PKG_DEB_NAME="(unsuppored)"
@@ -170,11 +168,12 @@ else
 
       ${R_HOME}/bin/Rscript tools/nixlibs.R $VERSION
 
-      LIB_DIR="$(pwd)/libarrow/arrow-${VERSION}/lib"
+      LIB_DIR="`pwd`/libarrow/arrow-${VERSION}/lib"
       if [ -d "$LIB_DIR" ]; then
         # Use pkg-config to do static linking of libarrow's dependencies
         export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${LIB_DIR}/pkgconfig${PKG_CONFIG_PATH:+:${PKG_CONFIG_PATH}}"
         PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
+        # pkg-config on CentOS 7 doesn't have --define-prefix option.
         if ${PKG_CONFIG} --help | grep -- --define-prefix >/dev/null 2>&1; then
           # --define-prefix is for binary packages. Binary packages
           # uses "/arrow/r/libarrow/dist" as prefix but it doesn't
@@ -210,7 +209,7 @@ CXX17FLAGS=`"${R_HOME}"/bin/R CMD config CXX17FLAGS`
 CXX17STD=`"${R_HOME}"/bin/R CMD config CXX17STD`
 CPPFLAGS=`"${R_HOME}"/bin/R CMD config CPPFLAGS`
 TEST_CMD="${CXX17} ${CPPFLAGS} ${PKG_CFLAGS} ${CXX17FLAGS} ${CXX17STD} -xc++ -"
-echo "#include $PKG_TEST_HEADER" | ${TEST_CMD} # >/dev/null 2>&1
+echo "#include $PKG_TEST_HEADER" | ${TEST_CMD} >/dev/null 2>&1
 
 if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
   # Check for features