In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Octave on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, GNU Octave is a programming language for scientific computing. It is used to perform numerical computations very easily and with a very high level of precision. Moreover, it is a very good alternative to MATLAB. With advantages like these, this software becomes a must-have for mathematical programming enthusiasts out there.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of GNU Octave on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
- It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
- SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
- A
non-root sudo useror access to theroot user. We recommend acting as anon-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.
Install Octave on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa
Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Step 2. Installing Octave on Ubuntu 20.04.
- Install Octave from the default Ubuntu repository.
By default, Octave is available Ubuntu 20.04 base repository. Now run the following command below to install the latest version of Octave to your Ubuntu system:
sudo apt install octave
- Install Octave using Snap.
Run the following command to install the Snap package manager to your Ubuntu system:
sudo apt install snapd
To install octave, simply use the following command:
sudo snap install octave
Step 3. Accessing Octave on Ubuntu.
Once successfully installed on your system, you can access its terminal by executing the command below:
octave-cli
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Octave. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing GNU Octave programming language for scientific computing on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Octave website.
