Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.

# Installing Octave

Here is the procedure for installing Octave from scratch on a Unix system. For instructions on how to install the binary distributions of Octave, see section Binary Distributions.

- Run the shell script ``configure'`. This will determine the features your system has (or doesn't have) and create a file named ``Makefile'` from each of the files named ``Makefile.in'`. Here is a summary of the configure options that are most frequently used when building Octave:
  `--prefix=prefix`
    Install Octave in subdirectories below prefix. The default value of prefix is ``/usr/local'`.
  `--srcdir=dir`
    Look for Octave sources in the directory dir.
  `--with-f2c`
    Use `f2c` even if a Fortran compiler is available.
  `--with-g77`
    Use `g77` to compile Fortran code.
  `--enable-shared`
    Create shared libraries. If you are planning to use `--enable-lite-kernelel` or the dynamic loading features, you will probably want to use this option. It will make your ``.oct'` files much smaller and on some systems it may be necessary to build shared libraries in order to use dynamically linked functions. You may also want to build a shared version of `libstdc++`, if your system doesn't already have one. Note that a patch is needed to build shared versions of version 2.7.2 of `libstdc++` on the HP-PA architecture. You can find the patch at @url{ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/g++/libg++-2.7.2-hppa-gcc-fix}.
  `--enable-dl`
    Use `dlopen` and friends to make Octave capable of dynamically linking externally compiled functions. This only works on systems that actually have these functions. If you plan on using this feature, you should probably also use `--enable-shared` to reduce the size of your ``.oct'` files.
  `--enable-shl`
    Use `shl_load` and friends to make Octave capable of dynamically linking externally compiled functions. This only works on systems that actually have these functions (only HP-UX systems). If you plan on using this feature, you should probably also use `--enable-shared` to reduce the size of your ``.oct'` files.
  `--enable-lite-kernel`
    Compile smaller kernel. This currently requires the dynamic linking functions `dlopen` or `shl_load` and friends so that Octave can load functions at run time that are not loaded at compile time.
  `--help`
    Print a summary of the options recognized by the configure script.
  See the file ``INSTALL'` for more information about the command line options used by configure. That file also contains instructions for compiling in a directory other than where the source is located.
- Run make. You will need a recent version of GNU Make. Modifying Octave's makefiles to work with other make programs is probably not worth your time. We recommend you get and compile GNU Make instead. For plotting, you will need to have gnuplot installed on your system. Gnuplot is a command-driven interactive function plotting program. Gnuplot is copyrighted, but freely distributable. The `gnu' in gnuplot is a coincidence--it is not related to the GNU project or the FSF in any but the most peripheral sense. To compile Octave, you will need a recent version of GNU Make. You will also need `g++` 2.7.2 or later. Version 2.8.0 or `egcs` 1.0.x should work. Later versions may work, but C++ is still evolving, so don't be too surprised if you run into some trouble. It is no longer necessary to have `libg++`, but you do need to have the GNU implementation of `libstdc++`. If you are using `g++` 2.7.2, `libstdc++` is distributed along with `libg++`, but for later versions, `libstdc++` is distributed separately. For `egcs`, `libstdc++` is included with the compiler distribution. If you plan to modify the parser you will also need GNU `bison` and `flex`. If you modify the documentation, you will need GNU Texinfo, along with the patch for the `makeinfo` program that is distributed with Octave. GNU Make, `gcc`, and `libstdc++`, `gnuplot`, `bison`, `flex`, and Texinfo are all available from many anonymous ftp archives. The primary site is @url{ftp.gnu.org}, but it is often very busy. A list of sites that mirror the software on @url{ftp.gnu.org} is available by anonymous ftp from @url{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/FTP}. If you don't have a Fortran compiler, or if your Fortran compiler doesn't work like the traditional Unix f77, you will need to have the Fortran to C translator `f2c`. You can get `f2c` from any number of anonymous ftp archives. The most recent version of `f2c` is always available from @url{netlib.att.com}. On an otherwise idle Pentium 133 running Linux, it will take somewhere between 1-1/2 to 3 hours to compile everything, depending on whether you are building shared libraries. You will need about 100 megabytes of disk storage to work with (considerably less if you don't compile with debugging symbols). To do that, use the command

      make CFLAGS=-O CXXFLAGS=-O LDFLAGS=

  instead of just ``make'`.
- If you encounter errors while compiling Octave, first check the list of known problems below to see if there is a workaround or solution for your problem. If not, see section Known Causes of Trouble, for information about how to report bugs.
- Once you have successfully compiled Octave, run ``make install'`. This will install a copy of octave, its libraries, and its documentation in the destination directory. As distributed, Octave is installed in the following directories. In the table below, prefix defaults to ``/usr/local'`, version stands for the current version number of the interpreter, and arch is the type of computer on which Octave is installed (for example, ``i586-unknown-gnu'`).
  ``prefix/bin'`
    Octave and other binaries that people will want to run directly.
  ``prefix/lib'`
    Libraries like libcruft.a and liboctave.a.
  ``prefix/share'`
    Architecture-independent data files.
  ``prefix/include/octave'`
    Include files distributed with Octave.
  ``prefix/man/man1'`
    Unix-style man pages describing Octave.
  ``prefix/info'`
    Info files describing Octave.
  ``prefix/share/octave/version/m'`
    Function files distributed with Octave. This includes the Octave version, so that multiple versions of Octave may be installed at the same time.
  ``prefix/lib/octave/version/exec/arch'`
    Executables to be run by Octave rather than the user.
  ``prefix/lib/octave/version/oct/arch'`
    Object files that will be dynamically loaded.
  ``prefix/share/octave/version/imagelib'`
    Image files that are distributed with Octave.

## Installation Problems

This section contains a list of problems (and some apparent problems that don't really mean anything is wrong) that may show up during installation of Octave.

- On some SCO systems, `info` fails to compile if `HAVE_TERMIOS_H` is defined int ``config.h'`. Simply removing the definition from ``info/config.h'` should allow it to compile.
- If `configure` finds `dlopen`, `dlsym`, `dlclose`, and `dlerror`, but not the header file ``dlfcn.h'`, you need to find the source for the header file and install it in the directory ``usr/include'`. This is reportedly a problem with Slackware 3.1. For Linux/GNU systems, the source for ``dlfcn.h'` is in the `ldso` package.
- Building ``.oct'` files doesn't work. You should probably have a shared version of `libstdc++`. A patch is needed to build shared versions of version 2.7.2 of `libstdc++` on the HP-PA architecture. You can find the patch at @url{ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/g++/libg++-2.7.2-hppa-gcc-fix}.
- On FreeBSD systems Octave may hang while initializing some internal constants. The fix appears to be to use

      options      GPL_MATH_EMULATE

  rather than

      options      MATH_EMULATE

  in the kernel configuration files (typically found in the directory ``/sys/i386/conf'`. After making this change, you'll need to rebuild the kernel, install it, and reboot.
- If you encounter errors like

      passing `void (*)()' as argument 2 of
        `octave_set_signal_handler(int, void (*)(int))'

  or

      warning: ANSI C++ prohibits conversion from `(int)' to `(...)'

  while compiling ``sighandlers.cc'`, you may need to edit some files in the `gcc` include subdirectory to add proper prototypes for functions there. For example, Ultrix 4.2 needs proper declarations for the `signal` function and the `SIG_IGN` macro in the file ``signal.h'`. On some systems the `SIG_IGN` macro is defined to be something like this:

      #define  SIG_IGN  (void (*)())1

  when it should really be something like:

      #define  SIG_IGN  (void (*)(int))1

  to match the prototype declaration for the `signal` function. This change should also be made for the `SIG_DFL` and `SIG_ERR` symbols. It may be necessary to change the definitions in ``sys/signal.h'` as well. The `gcc` `fixincludes` and `fixproto` scripts should probably fix these problems when `gcc` installs its modified set of header files, but I don't think that's been done yet. You should not change the files in ``/usr/include'`. You can find the `gcc` include directory tree by running the command

      gcc -print-libgcc-file-name

  The directory of `gcc` include files normally begins in the same directory that contains the file ``libgcc.a'`.
- Some of the Fortran subroutines may fail to compile with older versions of the Sun Fortran compiler. If you get errors like

      zgemm.f:
      	zgemm:
      warning: unexpected parent of complex expression subtree
      zgemm.f, line 245: warning: unexpected parent of complex
        expression subtree
      warning: unexpected parent of complex expression subtree
      zgemm.f, line 304: warning: unexpected parent of complex
        expression subtree
      warning: unexpected parent of complex expression subtree
      zgemm.f, line 327: warning: unexpected parent of complex
        expression subtree
      pcc_binval: missing IR_CONV in complex op
      make[2]: *** [zgemm.o] Error 1

  when compiling the Fortran subroutines in the ``libcruft'` subdirectory, you should either upgrade your compiler or try compiling with optimization turned off.
- On NeXT systems, if you get errors like this:

      /usr/tmp/cc007458.s:unknown:Undefined local symbol LBB7656
      /usr/tmp/cc007458.s:unknown:Undefined local symbol LBE7656

  when compiling ``Array.cc'` and ``Matrix.cc'`, try recompiling these files without `-g`.
- Some people have reported that calls to shell_cmd and the pager do not work on SunOS systems. This is apparently due to having `G_HAVE_SYS_WAIT` defined to be 0 instead of 1 when compiling `libg++`.
- On NeXT systems, linking to ``libsys_s.a'` may fail to resolve the following functions

      _tcgetattr
      _tcsetattr
      _tcflow

  which are part of ``libposix.a'`. Unfortunately, linking Octave with `-posix` results in the following undefined symbols.

      .destructors_used
      .constructors_used
      _objc_msgSend
      _NXGetDefaultValue
      _NXRegisterDefaults
      .objc_class_name_NXStringTable
      .objc_class_name_NXBundle

  One kluge around this problem is to extract ``termios.o'` from ``libposix.a'`, put it in Octave's ``src'` directory, and add it to the list of files to link together in the makefile. Suggestions for better ways to solve this problem are welcome!
- If Octave crashes immediately with a floating point exception, it is likely that it is failing to initialize the IEEE floating point values for infinity and NaN. If your system actually does support IEEE arithmetic, you should be able to fix this problem by modifying the function `octave_ieee_init` in the file ``lo-ieee.cc'` to correctly initialize Octave's internal infinity and NaN variables. If your system does not support IEEE arithmetic but Octave's configure script incorrectly determined that it does, you can work around the problem by editing the file ``config.h'` to not define `HAVE_ISINF`, `HAVE_FINITE`, and `HAVE_ISNAN`. In any case, please report this as a bug since it might be possible to modify Octave's configuration script to automatically determine the proper thing to do.
- After installing the binary distribution of Octave in an alternate directory, the Emacs command `run-octave` doesn't work. Emacs hangs in `accept-process-output` in `inferior-octave-startup`. This seems to be a problem with executing a shell script using the comint package. You can avoid the problem by changing the way Octave is installed to eliminate the need for the shell script. You can either compile and install Octave using the source distribution, reinstall the binary distribution in the default directory, or copy the commands in the octave shell script wrapper to your shell startup files (and the shell startup files for anyone else who is using Octave) and then rename the file ``octave.bin'` to be ``octave'`.

## Binary Distributions

Although Octave is not very difficult to build from its sources, it is a relatively large program that does require a significant amount of time and disk space to compile and install. Because of this, many people want to be able to obtain binary distributions so they can start using Octave immediately, without having to bother with the details of compiling it first. This is understandable, so I try to maintain a current collection of binary distributions at @url{ftp://ftp.che.wisc.edu/pub/octave/BINARIES}.

Please understand, however, that there is only a limited amount of time available to devote to making binaries, so binaries may not be immediately available for some platforms. (Please contact @email{bug-octave@bevo.che.wisc.edu} if you are interested in helping make a binary distribution available for your system.)

### Installing Octave from a Binary Distribution

To install Octave from a binary distribution, execute the command

    sh ./install-octave

in the top level directory of the distribution.

Binary distributions are normally compiled assuming that Octave will be installed in the following subdirectories of ``/usr/local'`.

``bin'`
  Octave and other binaries that people will want to run directly.
``lib'`
  Shared libraries that Octave needs in order to run. These files are not included if you are installing a statically linked version of Octave.
``man/man1'`
  Unix-style man pages describing Octave.
``info'`
  Info files describing Octave.
``share/octave/version/m'`
  Function files distributed with Octave. This includes the Octave version, so that multiple versions of Octave may be installed at the same time.
``libexec/octave/version/exec/arch'`
  Executables to be run by Octave rather than the user.
``libexec/octave/version/oct/arch'`
  Object files that will be dynamically loaded.
``share/octave/version/imagelib'`
  Image files that are distributed with Octave.

where version stands for the current version number of the interpreter, and arch is the type of computer on which Octave is installed (for example, ``i586-pc-linux-gnu'`).

If these directories don't exist, the script `install-octave` will create them for you. The installation script also creates the following subdirectories of ``/usr/local'` that are intended for locally installed functions:

``share/octave/site/m'`
  Locally installed M-files.
``libexec/octave/site/exec/arch'`
  Locally installed binaries intended to be run by Octave rather than by the user.
``libexec/octave/site/octave/arch'`
  Local object files that will be dynamically linked.

If it is not possible for you to install Octave in ``/usr/local'`, or if you would prefer to install it in a different directory, you can specify the name of the top level directory as an argument to the ``install-octave'` script. For example:

    sh ./install-octave /some/other/directory

will install Octave in subdirectories of the directory ``/some/other/directory'`.

### Creating a Binary Distribution

Here is how to build a binary distribution for others to use. If you want to make a binary distribution for your system available along with the Octave sources and binaries on @url{ftp.che.wisc.edu}, please follow this procedure. For directions explaining how to make the binary available on the ftp site, please contact @email{bug-octave@bevo.che.wisc.edu}.

- Unpack the source distribution:

      gunzip -c octave-2.0.5.tar.gz | tar xf -

- Change your current directory to the top-level directory of the source distribution:

      cd octave-2.0.5

- Make the binary distribution:

      make binary-dist

  This will create a compressed tar file ready for distribution. It will have a name like ``octave-2.0.5-i586-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz'`

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.