en fin: ..painless GNU Octave installation for Windows 95/98/NT!

[demarchi . j]

Greetings:

Here's a release of Tom Weichmann's GNU Octave installation (version 2.1.31)
for Windows that now installs *painlessly* on both Windows 98 and Windows NT
4.0.

..It's presumed to work for Windows 95 too, though an enterprising volunteer
will undoubtedly validate this for us.  It'd also be fantastic if someone
could test this out on Windows 2000 and Windows ME, and let us know what
happens.  Neither Tom nor I seem to be able to find a machine with these
OSs.  ..Someone's just offered to test Win2k, now all we need is Win98 ME.

..This includes fixes for some recent complaints, inc. not being able to
GNUPlot.  I'd recommend that anyone with outstanding Windows troubles un-
install the old version and install this newer release.  ONE NOTE: If
your explorer window is still trained on the old installation directory
when you try to install the new release, the installation will fail; to be
failsafe, close any windows explorer windows before the new installation.
This is not an installer bug, it's a Windows resource conflict (file
permissions are already locked by explorer in this scenario).

Please also note that the previous releases are no longer available for
download, as they are now superceded by the new release.

BTW, I took Tom's concept as a springboard and added some nifty icons &
bitmaps to give the installion a nice aesthetic touch.  Perhaps these can
be used on Linux desktops too.  If you're interested, see the developer link
below and look in the "GNU Octave Icons" subdirectory.

Cheers, enjoy.

Julian / MatLinks.net
address@hidden

_______________________________
GNU Octave for Windows 95/98/NT:
http://download.sourceforge.net/octave-windows-2000oct25d.exe
_______________________________
Installation development source:
http://download.sourceforge.net/octave-windows-dev-2000oct25c.zip
(..if you're interested to see how it's done, or want to help improve
things...)

p.s. This is a 7.5MB download.  We're looking at ways to split this up and
pull only needed components via FTP using a smaller installer.  This would
be a major benefit for upgrades, and for example, folks who already have
CygWin or aren't interested in using GNUPlot for graphing.  But it may take
some time.  Sorry it's so huge!

p.p.s. This is really the sort of thing that ought to be hosted by
octave.sourceforge.net!

Some final notes:
(1) a known issue is that the <End> and <Home> keys don't correspond to
<ctrl><e> and <ctrl<a>, respectively.  Anyone who knows the fix please email
me.
(2) tip: you can easily change the font used in the octave window: find the
file (in the GNU Octave path) called binŠÜstart.  Edit the line

rxvt -fn "Courier New-14" -tn linux -title Octave -sr -sl 10000 -e octave

..to read instead:

rxvt -fn "YOURFONT" -tn linux -title Octave -sr -sl 10000 -e octave

where YOURFONT is the font+size you wish to use (it must be available on
your system).  If you type bash from the bin subdirectory, and then type
rxvt --help, you'll see explanations for each of the options.  One of the
things I added was the vertical scrollbar, but you can add or change
whatever options you like.  I'm working on a way to do this easily from
within octave itself.

Other suggestions and tips are welcome!


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