The following is my current best set of directions for installing Octave on a Windows system using either a binary package or by installing from sources using the Cygwin tools. If you already have Cygwin installed, you may need to update your installation of tools to include those mentioned below.
NOTE: In a few places he talks about doing a Source installation or a source compile and install. If you do not know what that means, you want a binary install. If you are doing a binary install be sure to skip steps 12-16 (inclusive).
Following these steps should give you an Octave installation that includes all the necessary tools for building dynamically linked functions (.oct files).
You may choose to install for just you or all users (if you have permission to do so). I would select Unix as the default text file type (this option should be the default).
If you want to install a binary package of Octave, also add the User URL
ftp://ftp.octave.org/pub/octave/cygwinMake sure both http://mirror.calvin.edu and ftp://ftp.octave.org are selected before continuing.
Binary and Source installations:
Select the gnuplot package from the Graphics category. The gnuplot package from ftp.octave.org will give you the Windows binary repackaged for Cygwin. If you select the gnuplot package from one of the Cygwin mirrors, you will get a recent 3.8 beta version (pre 4.0 release).Additional packages for binary install:
Also select the Octave packages you want from the Math category.Additional packages for source compile and install:
The defaults are not enough to build all of Octave from sources. In addition to the default set of packages, you should select the following packages from the following categories:
Archive: unzipOnce you have made these selections, click the Next button to download and install all the selected packages. The download and install may take a while depending on the speed of your computer and your connection to the net.
Devel: autoconf, binutils, bison, cvs, dejagnu, flex, gcc, g++, g77, gperf, make
Text: less, tetex, tetex-base
Utils: diff, patch
Skip to step 17 if you are installing the binary package.
You should check the web page http://www.octave.org/download.html or look for the file RECOMMENDED-IS-N.NN.NN in the ftp download directory to see what version is currently recommended (N.NN.NN will be an actual version number, like 2.1.50). If more recent versions may be available they should be considered experimental.
The CVS sources are only recommended for people who want be involved in Octave's development process and who don't mind running into the occasional show-stopping bug.
Snapshot:
IMPORTANT: If you use the ftp client, be sure to set the binary mode for downloads by typing
binaryat the ftp prompt.
tar zxf octave-2.1.50.tar.gzin the Cygwin shell. This command will create a subdirectory called octave-2.1.50 in your home directory.
cd octave-2.1.50then continue with step 14 below.
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@www.octave.org:/cvs loginin the Cygwin shell. The first command will prompt you for a password; reply with anoncvs. The checkout command will create a subdirectory called octave containing the current CVS version of the Octave sources.
cvs -z 9 -d :pserver:anoncvs@www.octave.org:/cvs checkout octave
cd octave
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-shared --disable-staticThis command will take several minutes to run as the configure script determines what features are available on your system. You need the --enable-shared option if you want to build dynamically loaded functions (.oct files) later. You may omit the --disable-static option if you want to build static libraries (.a files) in addition to shared libraries, but the build will take about twice as long to complete.
makeYou may see warnings from gcc saying that __cdecl is redefined or that all code is position independent. You may safely ignore these warnings.
make checkRunning the tests may take a very long time, so if you are in a hurry, you might want to skip this step. At the time of this writing, there are 4 expected failures related to the try-catch and eval commands. You may safely ignore those failures.
make install
octavein the cygwin shell and then typing
sombrero (41)at the Octave prompt to see if you can create a plot.
cd examplesIf you are doing a binary package install, the examples should be installed in the /usr/share/doc/octave/... XXX FIXME XXX
mkoctfile hello.cc
octave
...
octave:1> hello
Hello, world!
Modified 3/25/05
Tim H. Brom
thb3@calvin.edu
Calvin College
Last Modified: