How to install scilab 5.0.3 on Ubuntu 8.4

THIS GUIDE IS NOW DEPRECIATED, A MORE RECENT AND EASIER VERSION CAN BE FOUND HERE

They say if u want something done you’d better do it your self. Since there was no deb package for the latest scilab 5.0.3. I had no choice than to build one from source. it wasn’t easy hunting down the needed dependency many of which are not available in the hardy repository. I had to download online from the intrepid repo . here are the things  i did to get it to compile.

first download the latest scilab 5.0.3

wget http://www.scilab.org/download/5.0.3/scilab-5.0.3-src.tar.gz

mv it to your home directory

mv scilab-5.0.3-src.tar.gz $HOME

then we install the scilab dependencies that are available in that hardy repository

sudo apt-get build-dep scilab
sudo apt-get install liblaf-plugin-java libjgoodies-looks-java scilab-doc ant sun-java5-jdk

once that is done
time to download and install the external dependencies that are not available in hardy repo to make things easy we create a directory called dependencies

mkdir dependencies

now we enter into the dependencies directory we just created

cd dependencies

then we download the required dependencies

libflexdock-jni
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libf/libflexdock-java/libflexdock-jni_0.5.1-dfsg1-4_i386.deb

libflexdock-java-doc
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libf/libflexdock-java/libflexdock-java-doc_0.5.1-dfsg1-4_all.deb

libflexdock-java-demo
wget [url]http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libf/libflexdock-java/libflexdock-java-demo_0.5.1-dfsg1-4_all.deb[/url]

libjogl-jni
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/libj/libjogl-java/libjogl-jni_1.1.1-2ubuntu1_i386.deb

libjogl-java
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/libj/libjogl-java/libjogl-java_1.1.1-2ubuntu1_all.deb

libjrosetta-java
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libj/libjrosetta-java/libjrosetta-java_1.0.1+gpl-1_all.deb

libmatio0
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libm/libmatio/libmatio0_1.3.3-2_i386.deb

libmatio-dev
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libm/libmatio/libmatio-dev_1.3.3-2_i386.deb

libflexdock-java
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libf/libflexdock-java/libflexdock-java_0.5.1-dfsg1-4_all.deb

libskinlf-java
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/libs/libskinlf-java/libskinlf-java_6.7-3_all.deb

once every last one of the dependency as been downloaded
we then install all of them with one command

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

once done . we have installed all the dependencies needed by the application.

NOTE: I didnt build this on a fresh ubuntu so they maybe some needed which didnt show up because there were already installed on my computer. so to be save make sure you install build-essential
sudo apt-get install build-essential

now we start the build.

cd ..

extract the scilab

tar -xzvf scilab-5.0.3-src.tar.gz

enter the directory

cd scilab-5.0.3

then run configure

./configure

it would take a while. and if all went well it would return no errors meaning all the dependencies needed for compiling the package is installed. now we run make

make

this would take a very very long time.. if you have anything else to do .. this is the right time.
i ran this on a pentium dual core 1.8ghz 2gb ram and it took almost 1 hour.

but once its done

sudo make install

it would also take some time to complete .. but once its done without errors that means that scilab 5.0.3 has been installed and can be found in /Application/Education/Scilab

hope some one finds this useful.

PS.. if u run ibex. you dont just

sudo apt-get build-dep scilab
sudo apt-get install liblaf-plugin-java libjgoodies-looks-java scilab-doc ant sun-java5-jdk

and

sudo apt-get install libflexdock-jni libskinlf-java libflexdock-java libmatio-dev libmatio0 libjrosetta-java jogl-java libjogl-jni libflexdock-java-demo libflexdock-java-doc

before starting the compiling

For those using Intrepid good news is that u dont have to go thru all the process i went thru just
In /etc/apt/sources, add the line:

deb http://www.scilab.org/team/sylvestre.ledru/repository/ubuntu/ intrepid main

sudo aptitude update

sudo aptitude install scilab

Reference http://www.scilab.org/team/sylvestre.ledru/