This file documents the installation of Octave.

   Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation.

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 *Note 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.

     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 the latest 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.

     You will probably also need the GNU C and C++ compiler (gcc) and
     the GNU C++ class library (libg++).

     GNU make, gcc, and libg++, and gnuplot are all available from many
     anonymous ftp archives, including ftp.che.utexas.edu, ftp.uu.net,
     prep.ai.mit.edu, and wuarchive.wustl.edu.

     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 research.att.com.

     On an otherwise idle SPARCstation II, it will take somewhere
     between 60 and 90 minutes to compile everything, depending on
     whether you are compiling the Fortran libraries with f2c or using
     the Fortran compiler directly.  You will need about 25 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 all goes well, run `make install'.

     This will install a copy of octave, its libraries, and its
     documentation in the destination directory.  As distributed, the
     octave binary is installed in the directory `/usr/local/bin',
     other related files are installed in the directory
     `/usr/local/lib/octave', and the Info file in the directory
     `/usr/local/lib/info'. You can specify a top-level directory other
     than `/usr/local' by running configure with the `--prefix=dir'
     option.  See the file INSTALL for more information.

   * Octave has been compiled and tested with gcc-2.4.2 and
     libg++-2.3.1 on a SPARCstation 2 running SunOS 4.1.2, an IBM
     RS/6000 running AIX 3.2, and a DECstation 5000/240 running Ultrix
     4.2a.  It is probably not very hard to port it to other Unix-like
     systems that run GCC.

Binary Distributions
====================

   This section constains instructions for creating a and installing a
binary distribution.

Installing Octave from a Binary Distribution
--------------------------------------------

   * To install Octave from a binary distribution, execute the command

          sh ./doinstall.sh

     in the top level directory of the distribution.

     Binary distributions are normally compiled assuming that Octave
     will be installed in subdirectories of `/usr/local'.  If this is
     not possible, or you would prefer to install it in a different
     directory, use an optional argument to the doinstall.sh script to
     specify the top level directory:

          sh ./doinstall.sh /some/other/directory

     Octave will then be installed in the following directories:

          PREFIX/bin                   -- Octave shell script and binary
          PREFIX/octave/lib/VERSION     -- M-files
          PREFIX/info                  -- Info files

     where PREFIX defaults to `/usr/local', and VERSION stands for the
     current version number of the interpreter.

     If these directories don't exist, the script `doinstall.sh' will
     create them for you.

Creating a Binary Distribution
------------------------------

   Here is how to build a binary distribution for others.

   * Build Octave in same directory as source.  This is required since
     the `binary-dist' targets in the Makefiles will not work if you
     compile outside the source tree.

   * Use `CFLAGS=-O CXXFLAGS=-O LDFLAGS=' as arguments for Make because
     most people who get the binary distributions are probably not
     going to be interested in debugging Octave.

   * Type `make binary-dist'.  This will build everything and then pack
     it up for distribution.