Building Octave can be as simple as downloading the source and running the following three commands in your GNU/Linux shell:
We try to keep build instructions up to date in the source tree. Please clone using [http://mercurial.selenic.com/ Mercurial] or download it and see the README.
./configure
make
make install
[http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Installation.html#Installation More detailed instructions]
for building from source are included in the Octave manual.