25

Yet again I am to turn to this wonderful resource available to me and ask, how do I install the latest version of GNU Octave (not Octave 3.2.4 -- the one available in the software centre)?

Jorge Castro
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Josh Pinto
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  • It doesn't work at my system... The following lines seems to be OK wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-3.8.0.tar.bz2 tar -xvf octave-3.8.0.tar.bz2 cd octave-3.8.0 sudo apt-get build-dep octave ./configure make but the last one seems not work... sudo make install The system tells me, that is not a rule defined. What's wrong with the procedure...? Thanks a lot for your support –  Apr 23 '14 at 10:42
  • This is what happens when i try to run using the command on terminal. ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘/usr/local/bin/octave’: Permission denied –  Jul 05 '15 at 11:20

4 Answers4

60

You can add the ppa:devacom/science PPA to install the latest version of Octave (6.4.0, as of January 2021) in Ubuntu 20.04.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:devacom/science
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install octave

Alternatively, you can use flatpak to install the latest version of Octave in Ubuntu 18.04+.

sudo apt install flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub org.octave.Octave

Then you can run it from the terminal with the command flatpak run org.octave.Octave (the GUI version is available too).

See this question to create a wrapper script octave, if you don't want to execute the long command flatpak run org.octave.Octave again and again.

The PPA mentioned in this part of answer is inactive since 2018, and it is kept for historical purposes.

You can install the latest stable version of GNU Octave for any supported Ubuntu release:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:octave/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install octave

This PPA is maintained and supported by several Octave developers.

Archisman Panigrahi
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Michael Miller
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  • @mike-miller helped me to find out that in Ubuntu we should use: sudo -H apt-get install octave. If not, the .config/octave folder will be created in the user's home folder with root ownership and Octave will not start. With sudo -H the .config/octave folder is created in the root home folder. – estibordo Oct 19 '16 at 21:39
  • See Link in Octave Wiki: http://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_Debian_systems#Octave.27s_Personal_Package_Archive_.28PPA.29_for_Ubuntu – loved.by.Jesus May 30 '17 at 11:22
  • Unfortunately this repo has broken packages that do not provide all versions of dependencies. octave : Depends: libcxsparse3.1.2 but it is not installable Depends: liboctave4 (= 4.2.1-2~octave~trusty2) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libqhull6 but it is not installable Depends: libqscintilla2-11 but it is not installable – Martin Jan 06 '18 at 12:40
  • @Martin it looks like you are trying to install octave from this repository on the wrong Ubuntu release. Check that the repository source definition matches the release you have installed. – Michael Miller Jan 07 '18 at 20:25
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    As of Jan 2018 this ppa is still needed to install 4.2.1 on Ubuntu 16.04LTS, which only ships 4.0.0 – Paul Jan 12 '18 at 04:23
22

For octave 3.6.1 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:picaso/octave
sudo apt-get update ; sudo apt-get install octave

Yes you can get octave-3.6.3 , open your terminal and paste this 

wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-3.6.3.tar.bz2
tar -xvf octave-3.6.3.tar.bz2
cd octave-3.6.3
./configure
 make
 sudo make install

Hope that helps :D

Raja G
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3

Ubuntu 12.04.3 and Octave 3.8.0 with statistics

wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-3.8.0.tar.bz2
tar -xvf octave-3.8.0.tar.bz2
cd octave-3.8.0
sudo apt-get build-dep octave
./configure
make
sudo make install

sudo apt-get install octave-statistics
octave
pkg install -forge io
pkg install -forge statistics
pkg load statistics
McElain
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2

Additionally now I know you can copy the following into the terminal:

wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-version#.tar.gz
tar -xvf /home/username/octave-version#.tar.gz
sudo rm /home/username/octave-version#.tar.gz
cd /home/username/octave-version#
./configure
make
ln -s /home/username/octave-version#/run-octave /usr/local/bin/octave
Josh Pinto
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