Installing Octave in Mac OSX

In Mac OSX one of the best ways to install software like Octave is through a package management system like ports. (Another similar system is called brew).

To install Octave 3.6 use port install octave-devel. (The non -devel system will install Octave 3.2, which lacks the octave forge package management system).

After Octave is installed, you need to install some basic toolboxes. Run the following commands. Note that the -auto will make sure the toolbox is enabled on start up.

pkg install -forge general
pkg install -forge control
pkg install -forge specfun
pkg install -forge -auto signal 

After installation test if you can run the following code:

x = randn(1, 101);
plot(x);

Now to test if the signal processing toolbox is installed

x = randn(1, 101);
[y, shifts] = xcorr(x);
plot(shifts, y, 'r.:');