Mercurial > mxe-octave

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<title>GNU Octave</title>
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<h1>Welcome</h1>
<p>Thank you for installing GNU Octave!</p>
<p>Octave 8.1 is a major release with many new features and improvements. Among
other things, it brings updates for Matlab compatibility, better printing,
support for non-ASCII characters at the command prompt on Windows 8.1 or newer,
and many general improvements since version 7.3.</p>
<p>It is not feature or API compatible with Octave 7. Binaries
(<code>.oct</code> or <code>.mex</code> files) need to be re-built.</p>
<p>Octave 8 will probably be the last major version which is distributed for
Windows 32-bit (or WoW64).</p>
<p>Since Octave 7, the minimum required version of the Windows API is 6.1
(Windows 7 or newer).</p>
<p>A full list of changes can be found in the Release Notes from the News
menu or by typing <code>news</code> on the command prompt.</p>

<h2>Changed default installation location</h2>
<p>Since version 6.1, Octave installs to the system wide default program
installation location (likely inside <code>C:\Program Files\GNU Octave</code>)
by default.<br />
It is a known issue that some operations might fail if Octave is installed in
a location containing spaces if short file names have been disabled for the file
system of the installation folder. Some systems seem to have disabled that
feature for some partitions (e.g., on <code>D:</code>). If you are unsure
whether your file system supports short file names, chose an installation folder
that doesn't contain spaces.</p>
<p>It is now also possible to install Octave without administrative privileges.
<br />In that case (or if an admin choses to install for the "local user" only),
the default installation location is inside
<code>%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\GNU Octave</code>.</p>

<h2>Included Octave Forge Packages</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_Microsoft_Windows#Packages">
number of Octave-Forge packages</a> has been included with Octave for Windows.
However, the packages must be loaded in order to use them.</p>
<p>
<ul>
<li>To list the available installed packages, use the
<code>pkg list</code> command.</li>
<li>To load a package in order to use its functions, use the
<code>pkg load PACKAGENAME</code> command.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>Other packages are available from
<a href="https://octave.sourceforge.io/">Octave-Forge</a>.</p>

<h2>BLAS Library Selection</h2>
<p>During the installation, a default BLAS library was selected. The installer
contains two BLAS implementations,
the <a href="http://www.netlib.org/blas/">NetLib reference BLAS</a>
and <a href="http://www.openblas.net/">OpenBLAS</a>.</p>
<p>The implementation by OpenBLAS tries to use the CPU features available on the
system. That means that it might perform faster than the reference
implementation. On the other hand, using it might result in higher round-off
errors.</p>
<p>The used implementation can be changed after installation with the "BLAS
Switcher" in the Start menu.</p>

<h2>OpenGL Renderer Selection</h2>
<p>During installation, an OpenGL renderer was selected. Octave for Windows
includes a software OpenGL renderer (llvmpipe by
<a href="https://www.mesa3d.org/">Mesa 3D</a>). That renderer can be used if the
OpenGL renderer drivers installed on the system aren't working as expected.</p>
<p>Note that the OpenGL renderer installed on the system might be hardware
accelerated. That means it might perform much faster than the software OpenGL
renderer.</p>
<p>The OpenGL renderer used by Octave can be changed after installation with the
"OpenGL Switcher" in the Start menu.</p>

<h2>General information for Octave on Windows</h2>
<p>Octave is developed primarily on GNU/Linux. The programs and wrapper scripts
bundled in this installer make a best effort to provide a seamless experience
of Octave on Windows.<br />
However, there are some (minor) limitations and idiosyncracies on that platform.
Please, read the <a href="https://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_Microsoft_Windows">
corresponding article</a> for further information and possible work-arounds.</p>
<p>The Octave GUI is currently not compatible with the new Windows Terminal App.
Please, switch the default to the (legacy) Windows Console Host for Octave to
work correctly.  See, e.g.,
<a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-terminal-as-your-default-command-line-experience/">
these instructions by Microsoft</a> for how to change the default terminal and
select "Windows Console Host".
</p>

<h2>Contributing to Octave</h2>
<p>Octave has a community that lives from its users. You are welcome to share
with that community.</p>
<p>For help and support, visit the
<a href="https://octave.discourse.group/">Octave Discourse forum</a>.</p>
<p>Please, report any problems with Octave on the
<a href="https://octave.org/bugs.html">Octave website</a>.</p>
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author	Markus Mützel <markus.muetzel@gmx.de>
date	Mon, 02 Jan 2023 11:51:08 +0100
parents	f07d1a1f28b7
children	2f615fe8f53e