How to make Octave use “gnuplot” instead of “fltk” by default?

Question

I'm using Octave 3.8 on Ubuntu 13.10 and "fltk" for graphics is not working well. So I always switch to "gnuplot" by commanding:

graphics_toolkit("gnuplot")

How can I configure Octave to use "gnuplot" by default?

Answer 1

You add the command to your .octaverc file.

For more info: http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Startup-Files.html

Answer 2

You can add that line to the .octaverc file. If the files does not exist, just create it on your home directory. This file is executed every time you start Octave unless you pass the -f or --norc option.

You can add many other things to you .octaverc file. As an example, this is part of mine:

## use man instead of help
function man (name = "help");
  mlock (); # lock in memory so it's not removed by clear all
  help (char (name));
endfunction

## no octave-core
crash_dumps_octave_core (0);

EDITOR ("nano");
edit ("mode", "sync");

## pretty prompt
PS1 ("\\[\\033[01;31m\\]\\s:\\#> \\[\\033[0m\\]");
## no > for multi-line input
PS2 ("");

## default image size to take the right half of the monitor
set (0,
  "DefaultFigurePosition",
    [get(0, "screensize")(3)/2    1 ...
     get(0, "screensize")(3)/2    get(0, "screensize")(4)]
);