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I am using Ubuntu 14.04.2. I want to install the latest version of Octave (Octave 4.0.0 ). But in official Ubuntu repository ,there is only octave version 3.8 available for download/install.

How can I install Octave 4.0.0 safely/easily in Ubuntu 14.04.2?

I don't want to install/compile it directly from source which is available at official website, because I feel it is not easy method to install.

muru
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Yuvaraj V
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    Please see the answer in this question for a manual installation: http://askubuntu.com/questions/138832/how-to-install-the-latest-octave – mdd Jul 07 '15 at 17:01
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    @MatthiasDiener hit it right on the head. The GNU Octave website says "The delay between an Octave source release and the availability of a package for a particular GNU/Linux distribution varies. The Octave project has no control over that process". That means that you either use 3.8 or install from source. I can't seem to find a PPA from the GNU Octave site, and I'm not sure it would be wise to trust any other PPA source for it. – Andrew Wallace Jul 07 '15 at 17:46
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    @AndrewWallace Did you find any ppa with Octave 4.0? I could only find ppas with 3.8. Even the Ubuntu wily packages are only at 3.8.2. – mdd Jul 07 '15 at 17:55
  • Upon further inspection, no, there were no PPAs for 4.0.0. – Andrew Wallace Jul 07 '15 at 19:25
  • use synaptic package manager and make your life easier – Sudip Bhandari Mar 21 '18 at 10:56

6 Answers6

75

You have two options:

  1. Use the octave ppa, which already has the 4.0 version. You can install octave like this:

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

  2. Download and compile the sources yourself:

    sudo apt-get build-dep octave
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
tar xf octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
cd octave-4.0.0/
./configure
make 
sudo make install
Community
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mdd
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  • compiling from source method is not working... make step is giving error "No targets specified and no makefile found. " – Yuvaraj V Jul 16 '15 at 18:11
  • This probably means that your configure step is not successful. Can you post the full error message? – mdd Jul 16 '15 at 18:15
  • An explanation might be that you miss the packages to build octave. Please try running sudo apt-get build-dep octave and run configure again. – mdd Jul 16 '15 at 18:20
  • I compiled the source as in 2. However I then get the problem as described here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/650396/octave-4-no-gui-some-features-not-installed Any suggestion? – ZenoCosini Sep 21 '15 at 17:37
  • @MicheleV: Please use the ppa (as per my solution #1). It should be much easier to install, and it already contains the QT gui if I saw correctly. – mdd Sep 21 '15 at 17:40
  • @ M Diener I actually did so, for I was trying 1. first, but then I had unmet dependences. So then I proceeded in following the 2. method. – ZenoCosini Sep 21 '15 at 18:06
  • @MicheleV: Which Ubuntu version are you running? I just tried in Ubuntu 14.04, the ppa seems to work fine. – mdd Sep 21 '15 at 18:16
  • @M Diener: Elementary OS 0.3.1 Freya (64-bit), which is built on Ubuntu 14.04. I also tried to use --force-gui (which worked in 3.8.2) but with no success. – ZenoCosini Sep 21 '15 at 18:18
  • Hmm. I'm not sure if elementary is compatible with that ppa. Maybe try opening a new question with more information regarding the missing dependencies. – mdd Sep 21 '15 at 18:20
  • This worked for me. Apart from this, had to give R/W permission to /home//.config/octave directory – Abhishek Jul 02 '16 at 09:11
  • I bumped into the same issue as @Abhishek on 16.04; but all you really need to do is "sudo chown [user] ~/.config/octave/qt-settings"; the rest of the directory structure doesn't seem to be a concern to Octave. – Michael Macha Dec 18 '16 at 20:13
4

You can try this, just type the following commands in terminal and compile the source easily:

sudo apt-get install gcc g++ gfortran make libblas-dev liblapack-dev libpcre3-dev libarpack2-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev epstool libfftw3-dev transfig libfltk1.3-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev libgl2ps-dev libglpk-dev libreadline-dev gnuplot libgraphicsmagick++1-dev libhdf5-serial-dev openjdk-7-jdk libsndfile1-dev llvm-dev lpr texinfo libglu1-mesa-dev pstoedit libjack0 libjack-dev portaudio19-dev libqhull-dev libqrupdate-dev libqscintilla2-dev libqt4-dev libqtcore4 libqtwebkit4 libqt4-network libqtgui4 libsuitesparse-dev zlib1g-dev libxft-dev autoconf automake bison flex gperf gzip librsvg2-bin icoutils libtool perl rsync tar libosmesa6-dev libqt4-opengl-dev

wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
tar xf octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
rm octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
cd octave-4.0.0/
./configure
make -j4
sudo make install

This was OK for Ubuntu & Mint (you can use the command "make" without arguments if you are using a old computer).

Bendermh
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  • This is what OP did NOT want. You suggest installing it from source. – Pilot6 Aug 09 '15 at 13:06
  • " (i don't want to install/compile it directly from source which is available at official website,because i feel it is not easy method to install ) " Do you think that copy & paste 8 lines is not easy? – Bendermh Aug 09 '15 at 13:23
  • But your method is exactly compiling directly from source. – Pilot6 Aug 09 '15 at 13:25
  • Yes Pilot6, it is a compiling from source method. But if you read the question, the only reason given by the user is that compiling in not easy... – Bendermh Aug 09 '15 at 13:28
  • Upvoting because this is an useful answer, even if it wasn't the answer the OP hoped to get. (Sorry, OP!) – Ernir Aug 15 '15 at 19:11
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    @Bendermh: Did you just copy my answer?? – mdd Aug 16 '15 at 23:38
  • This is the same as the 2nd part of mdiener's answer except that it lists the build dependencies individually instead of using apt-get build-dep. – David Foerster Feb 12 '16 at 08:22
  • @Bendermh Copying and pasting the text is easy enough, but I'm some 25 minutes into compilingit on a 3 core, 4 GB VM. In the end, I'm going to have to end up compiling it on each machine I want it on. So, no, it isn't hard, but yes, it is a major pain to do for more than one machine. – rmustakos Feb 16 '17 at 23:44
4

This worked for me at the end.

In terminal, install

sudo apt-get build-dep octave

In synaptic, install

libqt4-opengl-dev

Then, download octave-4.0.0.tar.gz from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/

unzip octave-4.0.0.tar.gz to home.

cd octave-4.0.0
./configure
make
sudo make install

This worked on all the machines I tried in my laboratory.

naveen chandra Kumar
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  • For installing newer version 4.2+ under Ubuntu 16.04 or newer there is a tutorial here: https://www.scivision.co/compiling-octave-4-on-ubuntu/

    Old way to build from source will not work any more.

     – MF.OX Apr 08 '17 at 00:22
2

Use this link:

Five simple instructions to compile Octave 4.0.0 on Ubuntu

  1. get necessary dev-tools

    sudo apt-get install g++ gcc gfortran make autoconf automake bison flex gperf gzip icoutils librsvg2-bin libtool perl rsync tar

  2. get necessary packages

    sudo apt-get install libblas-dev liblapack-dev libpcre3-dev libarpack2-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev epstool libfftw3-dev transfig libfltk1.3-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev libgl2ps-dev libglpk-dev libreadline-dev gnuplot libgraphicsmagick++-dev libhdf5-serial-dev openjdk-7-jdk libsndfile1-dev llvm-dev lpr texinfo libgl1-mesa-dev libosmesa6-dev pstoedit portaudio19-dev libqhull-dev libqrupdate-dev libqscintilla2-dev libqt4-dev libqtcore4 libqtwebkit4 libqt4-network libqtgui4 libsuitesparse-dev libxft-dev zlib1g-dev

  3. download and extract

    cd /tmp
wget -c ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
tar -xzf octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
cd octave-4.0.0

  4. configure and make

    ./configure --prefix=/opt/octave-4.0.0 CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/include/hdf5/serial LDFLAGS=-L/usr/lib/$(dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_MULTIARCH)/hdf5/serial
make
make check

  5. install

    sudo make install
muru
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Roberto Toscano
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I think you need fort77 compiler... try this:

sudo apt-get install g++ gcc fort77
sudo apt-get build-dep octave
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-4.0.0.tar.xz
tar Jxvf octave-4.0.0.tar.xz
cd octave-4.0.0
./configure
make
sudo make install
David Foerster
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Ivan Nahin
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  • .. to install from the source you need fort77 pakage... and build-dep doesn't install the fortran compiler (that was my case) sorry for my English :/ – Ivan Nahin Feb 12 '16 at 08:32
1

You have two popular methods to install the latest octave. One is fast while other is slow. Installing from the binaries is fast. While installing from the source is rather complex and lengthy. Here both are here.

From Source

Open command terminal using this key CTRL+ALT+T

Type these commands 

wget -c ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
tar xzvf octave-4.0.0.tar.gz
cd octave-4.0.0
.configure
make 
make install

Default installation location of octave is /usr/local/lib/octave

Default command location is /usr/local/bin/octave

you can see the help using this command 

./configure --help

There is already file for installation instruction octave.installation in the source directory.

From Binaries using repository.

use these command to install the octave from binaries. It is fast and easy.

If you don't have java JDK and want to install the java JDK7. Then, use this command. 

sudo apt-get install gcc g++ gfortran make libblas-dev liblapack-dev libpcre3-dev libarpack2-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev epstool libfftw3-dev transfig libfltk1.3-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev libgl2ps-dev libglpk-dev libreadline-dev gnuplot libgraphicsmagick++1-dev libhdf5-serial-dev openjdk-7-jdk libsndfile1-dev llvm-dev lpr texinfo libglu1-mesa-dev pstoedit libjack0 libjack-dev portaudio19-dev libqhull-dev libqrupdate-dev libqscintilla2-dev libqt4-dev libqtcore4 libqtwebkit4 libqt4-network libqtgui4 libsuitesparse-dev zlib1g-dev libxft-dev autoconf automake bison flex gperf gzip librsvg2-bin icoutils libtool perl rsync tar libosmesa6-dev libqt4-opengl-dev

if you have java and don't want to install the java then use this command to install the necessary tools. 

sudo apt-get install gcc g++ gfortran make libblas-dev liblapack-dev libpcre3-dev libarpack2-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev epstool libfftw3-dev transfig libfltk1.3-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev libgl2ps-dev libglpk-dev libreadline-dev gnuplot libgraphicsmagick++1-dev libhdf5-serial-dev libsndfile1-dev llvm-dev lpr texinfo libglu1-mesa-dev pstoedit libjack0 libjack-dev portaudio19-dev libqhull-dev libqrupdate-dev libqscintilla2-dev libqt4-dev libqtcore4 libqtwebkit4 libqt4-network libqtgui4 libsuitesparse-dev zlib1g-dev libxft-dev autoconf automake bison flex gperf gzip librsvg2-bin icoutils libtool perl rsync tar libosmesa6-dev libqt4-opengl-dev

Add the PPA using this command. 

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:octave/stable

Update the local repository

sudo apt-get update

You can see the octave packges in the local repository

sudo apt-cache search "octave"

You will see the list which containing the octave. Install the latest the GNU octave using this command. 

sudo apt-get install octave

Note You can also use the aptitude instead of apt-get. Aptitude command is more intelligent than the apt-get

Elder Geek
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Hafiz Shehbaz Ali
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