octave-symbolic installed but not working

[Samuel Iglesias]

Binary package hint: octave-symbolic

I have installed all the packages octave-* (just in case) and octave3.2 on Ubuntu 10.10.

$ dpkg --get-selections | grep octave-symbolic
octave-symbolic install

$ dpkg --get-selections | grep octave3.2
octave3.2 install
octave3.2-common install
octave3.2-doc install
octave3.2-info install

If I run octave and try to execute:

octave:1> x = sym('x')
error: `sym' undefined near line 1 column 5

It seems that octave-symbolic is not properly installed. If I compile it by myself from the source code available on Octave-Forge, it works.

[Samuel Iglesias (samuelig)]

Same problem with Ubuntu 11.04

[Fabián Erasmo Peña Arellano (oquichtli)]

Dear developers,

I write just to ask if, by any chance, you have a date for fixing this bug. I am using GNU Octave 3.2.4-8 in Kubuntu 11.04.

I have been using GNU Octave for some time to do scientific work and I am very happy with it. Few weeks ago I installed the octave-symbolic package 1.0.9-1build1 but, as described by the bug report, it failed to work. Since then, I have tried several strategies to go around the problem, but I was unable to get the package working. My efforts included compiling from source, both the package and Octave itself.

It would be a lot easier for me to have the symbolic package working rather than considering giving up Octave.

By any chance is it within your immediate plans to fix this bug?

Thank you very much in advance.

Kind regards,

Fabián

[Carnë Draug (carandraug)]

If someone uses svn to obtain the development version, it works without any problem.

[Carnë Draug (carandraug)]

A new version of the package has been released just now. It installs fine but requires libginac-dev installed. If using octave 3.4 you can install it from the octave prompt (you'll need to run octave with sudo for the installation) with:

pkg install -forge symbolic