Install and Run

On Ubuntu 16.04:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:octave/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install octave

Start in console: octave.

On Winodows 10, download the binary file octave-4.2.1-w64.zip and extract. Then run octave.bat.

Package Management

The default package installation directory is ~/octave. So we need change it beforehand.

pkg prefix ~/.octave_pkgs
pkg install -forge io
pkg load io
pkg list
help xlsopen

To change the prefix permanently, add pkg prefix ~/.octave_pkgs into file ~/.octaverc.