Re: help_install octave

[Pablo Fernandez]

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Isak Delberth Davids <address@hidden> wrote:

On 28/12/2011, yashar mehmani <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi,
> Can somebody please tell me the simplest way of installing Octave 3.4 in
> Ubuntu 11.10?

Installing octave 3.2 is very easy. You just have to open the software center, search and install.

I am new to octave and matlab so octave 3.2 is enough for me by the time being.

I am not new to ubuntu though and out of curiosity I have just installed octave 3.4.3 from the last stable sources.

First of all, you need the basic tools for compiling. Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

nautilus-open-terminal will come handy so that you can navigate through the directories graphically and then open a terminal by right-clicking inside the right folder. Restart the session after installing nautilus-open-terminal, otherwise it won't work.

Use the up arrow to invoke the last command you entered, or just copy-paste from here to the terminal.

sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal

Now, you need the development packages of the libraries that octave depends on. This command will install most if not all of them (it has worked for me):

sudo apt-get build-dep octave3.2

Note that this will not install octave 3.2. It is just a trick to install some packages that are needed to compile octave 3.4

Now, download the last stable source code from octave.org (tar.gz for example). I usually move the source codes to

/home/my_user_name/software/sources/

Extract it with the right click, enter in "octave-3.4.3" directory and open a terminal via right click -> open terminal here.

Take a look at the INSTALL file. The instructions are there, but I will follow.

If you want to see what configuration options you have for your octave build, type:

./configure --help

I did not investigate further and just did the default (which might not be the best option in my case, but I tend to think that the default option is the best possible for most systems):

./configure

The output will end with a summary of the build configuration.

Then, run:

make

Depending on your system, it might take a long time.  Once finished, follow instructions. I just did:

sudo make install

You can run octave from a terminal (located in any directory) by typing:

octave

Cheers! Pablo