This file last updated: Thu Jan 12 15:28:50 1995

This directory contains the source for Octave, a high-level interactive
language for solving numerical problems.  See the files README.octave
and Announce for more general information, and the file NEWS for a
list of recent changes.

------------------------------------------------------------------
PLEASE NOTE:  We are only distributing gzipped files because we no
longer have room to distribute both compressed and gzipped files.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary distributions:
--------------------

Binaries for several popular systems are distributed along with the
source, and are available in the following subdirectories of
/pub/octave/BINARIES:

  subdirectory            binary compiled on
  -----------------------------------------------------------------
  alpha-dec-osf1.3        DEC Alpha/OSF1
  mips-dec-ultrix4.2      DECstation running Ultrix 4.2
  rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5     RS/6000 running AIX 3.2.5
  sparc-sun-sunos4.1.2    Sun SPARC running SunOS 4.1.2

Note:

  * Gnuplot binaries are *not* included.  For the plotting commands to
    work, you will need to install gnuplot on your system.  See the
    file INSTALL.octave in the top level directory of the distribution
    for more details.

  * Octave has been compiled assuming that you have `less' installed.
    You can use the environment variable PAGER to choose another pager.

  * We only have a limited amount of time available to devote to
    making binaries, so binaries may not be immediately available
    for some platforms.  Please contact bug-octave@bevo.che.wisc.edu if
    you are interested in helping make binary distributions available.

A note about patches:
--------------------

If you are trying to compile Octave with g++ 2.7.x, you should get the
file README-GCC-2.7.0.

The patch in the file libg++-procbuf-bug fixes a serious problem in
libg++ that can cause Octave to crash when trying to execute commands
like `ls', or display output through the pager.

The patch in the file libg++-complex-div-bug fixes a problem in libg++
that can cause division of real numbers by complex numbers to overflow
unnecessarily.

A note about .gz files:
----------------------

Files with names ending in `.gz' have been compressed with `gzip'.

Unlike the compress utility, gzip is free of any known software
patents and tends to compress better anyway.  Gzip can uncompress
`compress'-compressed files too, so you can install it as "uncompress"
and use it to handle both types of files.

The gzip program is available in the directory /pub/gnu in shar, tar,
or gzipped tar format (for those who already have a prior version of
gzip and want faster data transmission).  It works on virtually every
unix system, MSDOS, OS/2, and VMS.

--
John W. Eaton
jwe@bevo.che.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Chemical Engineering