Editing Octave for Debian systems

For Debian, and Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu, specific solutions.

== Pre-compiled binaries ==

Binary packages for Octave and many Octave-Forge packages are provided by all versions of Debian and Ubuntu. These are the most well-tested binaries available and should work best for most users.

 sudo apt-get install octave

Aside the {{codeline|octave}} package that installs GNU Octave, other pieces of it are split over multiple packages. These are {{codeline|octave-doc}}, {{codeline|octave-info}}, and {{codeline|octave-htmldoc}} for the documentation; {{codeline|liboctave-dev}} for the octave development header files and mkoctfile (required to install Octave Forge packages); and {{codeline|octave-dbg}} for the debugging symbols.

For Debian stable users, there may also be newer packages available in backports, so don't forget to check there.

=== Octave packages ===

Many Octave packages are also distributed by your Linux distribution.  These are tested to work the best with your Octave version.  For example:

 sudo apt-get install octave-control octave-image octave-io octave-optim octave-signal octave-statistics

=== Octave's Personal Package Archive (PPA) for Ubuntu ===

For some Ubuntu releases the Octave packages are too old (Ubuntu 12.04 only has Octave version 3.2).  The [https://launchpad.net/~octave GNU Octave Team] on Launchpad maintains a PPA providing more up to date packages of Octave for all versions of Ubuntu. These are backported from Debian unstable (the Ubuntu Octave Team needs help testing and preparing the packages so if you can help with this, contact [[User:Mtmiller|Mike Miller]]). To set up your system to install these packages:

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

=== Linuxbrew ===

It is possible to install the current stable version of Octave and any needed dependencies within your home directory, particularly useful if you have an old Linux distribution or do not have root access, using [http://linuxbrew.sh Linuxbrew]:

 ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Linuxbrew/install/master/install)"
 echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.linuxbrew/bin:$PATH"' >>~/.bash_profile
 brew install homebrew/science/octave

== Compiling from source ==

The ''only'' tricky part is to install the dependencies. Once that is solved, installing from source should be as easy as {{Codeline|./configure && make && make install}}. See the manual for [http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Running-Configure-and-Make.html configure options] and [[Octave_for_Debian_systems#Configuration|below]] for some common examples.

=== Install dependencies ===

Note that different Debian and Ubuntu versions may have slightly different package names but their differences should be pretty small, mostly limited to version numbers.

==== The easy way (but likely incorrect) ====

This approach is ''only'' suitable if you are building from source the ''same'' version that your Linux distribution already has packaged.

The easy way to install ''most'' of the necessary dependencies is to {{Codeline|sudo apt-get build-dep octave}}. This will install all packages necessary to build and prepare a Debian package for the octave version available on your system repositories. However:
* will install unnecessary packages related to the building of a Debian package;
* may miss some new dependencies;
* may install packages that are no longer octave dependencies.

==== The even easier way (but experimental) ====

The [[MXE|MXE-octave]] package provides a way to compile Octave for different platforms. Dependencies and certain flags are handled automatically.

==== The right way ====

The right way is to select and install all the dependencies as listed in the {{Path|INSTALL.OCTAVE}} file (if it is not in your source tree build it doing <code>make INSTALL.OCTAVE</code>). The following are their package names in Debian repositories (they will have their own dependencies which your package manager will solve automatically). If you are building development versions, you'll require some more packages as listed on {{Path|etc/HACKING}} and {{Path|INSTALL}}. Many of them will already be installed on your system. Install the dependencies by typing

 sudo apt-get install

followed by the package names of the table below.

:{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Dependency        !! Debian 8 Jessie (stable)             !! Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus (LTS)
|-
!colspan="3" style="text-align:center;" | Required build tools
|-
| C compiler
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/gcc gcc]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/gcc gcc]
|-
| C++ compiler
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/g++ g++]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/g++ g++]
|-
| Fortran compiler
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/gfortran gfortran]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/gfortran gfortran]
|-
| GNU make
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/make make]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/make make]
|-
!colspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| Required external packages
|-
| BLAS
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libblas-dev libblas-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libblas-dev libblas-dev]
|-
| LAPACK
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/liblapack-dev liblapack-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/liblapack-dev liblapack-dev]
|-
| PCRE
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libpcre3-dev libpcre3-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libpcre3-dev libpcre3-dev]
|-
!colspan="3"  style="text-align:center;"| ''Strongly'' recommended. Check the [http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/External-Packages.html Octave manual] for more information.
|-
| ARPACK
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libarpack2-dev libarpack2-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libarpack2-dev libarpack2-dev]
|-
| cURL
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libcurl4-gnutls-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libcurl4-gnutls-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev]
|-
| epstool
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/epstool epstool]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/epstool epstool]
|-
| FFTW3
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libfftw3-dev libfftw3-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libfftw3-dev libfftw3-dev]
|-
| fig2dev
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/transfig transfig]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/transfig transfig]
|-
| FLTK
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libfltk1.3-dev libfltk1.3-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libfltk1.3-dev libfltk1.3-dev]
|-
| fontconfig
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libfontconfig1-dev libfontconfig1-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libfontconfig1-dev libfontconfig1-dev]
|-
| FreeType
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libfreetype6-dev libfreetype6-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libfreetype6-dev libfreetype6-dev]
|-
| gl2ps
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libgl2ps-dev libgl2ps-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libgl2ps-dev libgl2ps-dev]
|-
| GLPK
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libglpk-dev libglpk-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libglpk-dev libglpk-dev]
|-
| GNU Readline
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libreadline-dev libreadline-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libreadline-dev libreadline-dev]
|-
| gnuplot
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/gnuplot gnuplot]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/gnuplot gnuplot-x11]
|-
| GraphicsMagick++
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libgraphicsmagick++1-dev libgraphicsmagick++1-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libgraphicsmagick++1-dev libgraphicsmagick++1-dev]
|-
| HDF5
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libhdf5-serial-dev libhdf5-serial-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libhdf5-serial-dev libhdf5-serial-dev]
|-
| Java JDK
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/openjdk-7-jdk openjdk-7-jdk]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/openjdk-8-jdk openjdk-8-jdk]
|-
| libsndfile
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libsndfile1-dev libsndfile1-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libsndfile1-dev libsndfile1-dev]
|-
| LLVM
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/llvm-dev llvm-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/llvm-dev llvm-dev]
|-
| lpr
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/lpr lpr]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/lpr lpr]
|-
| makeinfo
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/texinfo texinfo]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/texinfo texinfo]
|-
| OpenGL
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libgl1-mesa-dev libgl1-mesa-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libgl1-mesa-dev libgl1-mesa-dev]
|-
| OSMesa
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libosmesa6-dev libosmesa6-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libosmesa6-dev libosmesa6-dev]
|-
| pstoedit
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/pstoedit pstoedit]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/pstoedit pstoedit]
|-
| PortAudio
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/portaudio19-dev portaudio19-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/portaudio19-dev portaudio19-dev]
|-
| Qhull
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqhull-dev libqhull-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqhull-dev libqhull-dev]
|-
| QRUPDATE
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqrupdate-dev libqrupdate-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqrupdate-dev libqrupdate-dev]
|-
| QScintilla
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqscintilla2-dev libqscintilla2-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqscintilla2-dev libqscintilla2-dev]
|-
| Qt
||
[https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqt4-dev libqt4-dev]
[https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqtcore4 libqtcore4]
[https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqtwebkit4 libqtwebkit4]
[https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqt4-network libqt4-network]
[https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqtgui4 libqtgui4]
[https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libqt4-opengl-dev libqt4-opengl-dev]
||
[http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqt4-dev libqt4-dev]
[http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqtcore4 libqtcore4]
[http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqtwebkit4 libqtwebkit4]
[http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqt4-network libqt4-network]
[http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqtgui4 libqtgui4]
[http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libqt4-opengl-dev libqt4-opengl-dev]
|-
| SuiteSparse
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libsuitesparse-dev libsuitesparse-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libsuitesparse-dev libsuitesparse-dev]
|-
| Texlive
|| texlive
|| texlive
|-
| Xft
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libxft-dev libxft-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial3/libxft-dev libxft-dev]
|-
| zlib
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/zlib1g-dev zlib1g-dev]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/zlib1g-dev zlib1g-dev]
|-
!colspan="3"  style="text-align:center;"|  Required to build from development sources
|-
| Autoconf
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/autoconf autoconf]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/autoconf autoconf]
|-
| Automake
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/automake automake]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/automake automake]
|-
| Bison
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/bison bison]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/bison bison]
|-
| Flex
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/flex flex]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/flex flex]
|-
| gperf
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/gperf gperf]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/gperf gperf]
|-
| gzip
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/gzip gzip]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/gzip gzip]
|-
| icoutils
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/icoutils icoutils]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/icoutils icoutils]
|-
| rsvg-convert
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/librsvg2-bin librsvg2-bin]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/librsvg2-bin librsvg2-bin]
|-
| libtool
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libtool libtool]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/libtool libtool]
|-
| perl
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/perl perl]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/perl perl]
|-
| rsync
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/rsync rsync]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/rsync rsync]
|-
| tar
|| [https://packages.debian.org/jessie/tar tar]
|| [http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/tar tar]
|}

To install all of these on Ubuntu 16.04, type
 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-x11 libgraphicsmagick++1-dev libhdf5-serial-dev openjdk-8-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 libqt4-opengl-dev libsuitesparse-dev texlive libxft-dev zlib1g-dev autoconf automake bison flex gperf gzip icoutils librsvg2-bin libtool perl rsync tar
or, for Debian 8 stable,
 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 libgl1-mesa-dev libosmesa6-dev pstoedit portaudio19-dev libqhull-dev libqrupdate-dev libqscintilla2-dev libqt4-dev libqtcore4 libqtwebkit4 libqt4-network libqtgui4 libqt4-opengl-dev libsuitesparse-dev texlive libxft-dev zlib1g-dev autoconf automake bison flex gperf gzip icoutils librsvg2-bin libtool perl rsync tar
or, for Debian 9 stable,
 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-8-jdk libsndfile1-dev llvm-dev texinfo libgl1-mesa-dev libosmesa6-dev pstoedit portaudio19-dev libjack-jackd2-dev libqhull-dev libqrupdate-dev libqscintilla2-dev libqt4-dev libqtcore4 libqtwebkit4 libqt4-network libqtgui4 libqt4-opengl-dev libsuitesparse-dev texlive libxft-dev zlib1g-dev autoconf automake bison flex gperf gzip icoutils librsvg2-bin libtool perl rsync tar

{{Warning|<ul><li>The Debian repositoriy has several libraries for dealing with HDF data files. The recommended is {{Codeline|libhdf5-serial-dev}}. However, the {{Forge|msh|msh package}} requires [http://www.geuz.org/gmsh/ gmsh] which is incompatible with it.</li>
<li>The GraphicsMagick++ library (libgraphicsmagick++1-dev) on the Debian repositories was compiled with quantum 8 which limits reading images to 8 bit. The solution is to recompile [[GraphicsMagick]] with quantum 16 or 32 before building Octave.</li>
<li>For debian9 using openjdk-9-jdk (even providing  {{Codeline|JAVA_HOME}}) could *not* be used for the java interface! Use openjdk-8-jdk instead.</li>
<li>When configure decides to use QT5 instead of QT4, make might fail because lrelease is missing (see [https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?50580 bug 50580]).  It can be fixed by installing {{Codeline|qttools5-dev-tools}}</li>
</ul>}}

=== Obtaining the Source ===

The source code for Octave releases can be obtained as a tarball from [https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/ https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/].  The source code for development versions is available by cloning the [[Mercurial|mercurial repository]].

=== Bootstrap ===

If you are building development versions instead of an actual Octave release, you will need to run the {{Codeline|./bootstrap}} script.

=== Configuration ===

As mentioned above, Octave can be compiled with the default settings using {{Codeline|./configure && make && make install}}. You can also tweak the setup using configure options. Some examples are given below for a Linux system.

==== 64 bit ====

To get [https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Compiling-Octave-with-64_002dbit-Indexing.html 64-bit] indexing requires all linked libraries to support 64-bit variables. You can omit most of these except BLAS which gives a fatal error. This is remedied by compiling [http://www.openblas.net/ OpenBLAS] with edits to its Makefile.rule so that BINARY=64 INTERFACE64=1.

<code>./configure LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/OpenBLAS/lib CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/OpenBLAS/include LDFLAGS=-L/opt/OpenBLAS/lib --enable-64</code>

==== Java ====

Autodetection for java should work well on Debian-based systems. A specific Java version can be specified by passing {{codeline|JAVA_HOME}} to configure, for example

  ./configure JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64

==== HDF5 ====

On current versions of Debian and Ubuntu, you may get the following warning when building an older version of Octave from source:

 HDF5 library not found.  Octave will not be able to save or load HDF5 data files.

The problem is that there are multiple versions of the hdf5 package.  Octave was written with the serial version in mind but it is likely to work with the others (OpenMPI and Mpich). Due to the naming scheme done in Debian, it may be required to specify the location of the libraries.  See bug {{bug|38928}} for details (starting with comment #19) but basically, use the following when running configure:

  ./configure --with-hdf5-includedir=/usr/include/hdf5/serial --with-hdf5-libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial

On older versions of Debian and Ubuntu, where only one flavor of the HDF5 library could be installed at a time, you may need to build Octave against one of the MPI-enabled flavors. On these older systems, configuring Octave like this may work:

  ./configure CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include/mpi -DMPICH_SKIP_MPICXX -DOMPI_SKIP_MPICXX"

[[Category:Building]]
[[Category:Installation]]
[[Category:GNU/Linux]]