GUI is missing from armhf version

[T H]

Octave is installed on Ubuntu 16.04 from this package:

octave_4.0.0-3ubuntu9.1_armhf.deb

When I start octave as

$ octave

it runs in the terminal from which I start it. This behaviour differs from the amd64 and i386 architectures, where the new GUI opens.

Related:

The octave function available_graphics_toolkits returns only fltk and gnuplot. Qt is missing.

Please compile octave with Qt and GUI support also for armhf architecture.

[Mike Miller (mtmiller)]

The Octave GUI cannot be compiled on Ubuntu's arm architectures. Ubuntu's Qt is built with GLES2 on the armel and armhf architectures. The Octave GUI requires full OpenGL and GLU, which are not part of OpenGLES.

I don't have permissions to set this bug to Won't Fix, but Won't Fix.

[T H (deb-j)]

Would it be possible to add Qt to available_graphics_toolkits, so that the uicontrol function would work, even if the main IDE GUI does not, or is this precluded by the same dependency on OpenGL or GLU?

If not, I suppose I could compile Qt with software-openGL myself and use that to compile octave with GUI support, right?

(I can understand why Ubuntu would not want to go there, software emulated opengl on slow CPUs, affecting all Qt programs without need.)

[Mike Miller (mtmiller)]

Correct on all counts. The Qt graphics toolkit depends on GLU. The GUI itself does not depend on GLU, but at the moment the GUI and Qt graphics toolkit are built together. If anything, it might be possible in the future to separate the build to enable the GUI without GLU, but not the graphics toolkit.

Yes, building your own Qt should work.

[T H (deb-j)]

Thank you, Mike.

For anyone besides me, wanting to have Octave with GUI and Qt support on armhf:

If you are willing to replace ubuntu with debian, this will work:

On an existing debian stable (Jessie) installation, temporarily add the testing (Stretch) repositories to /etc/apt/sources, then update only octave and dependencies. It works fine.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for octave (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]