Installing PDL on Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft

These instructions apply to Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft, but they will most probably be useful for other Ubuntu versions. For this installation to work your computer must have access to Internet.

On the top bar select Sytem -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager

The synaptic package manager application will open up. Close any message windows that popup by clicking on Close. In the synaptic manager choose Settings -> Repositories. A Software sources window will popup. On that window click on the Third Party tab and then on the Add button.

A new window will pop up where you can insert text. Write on the APT line:

deb http://ftp.debian.org stable main contrib non-free

Click on Add Source.

On the Third Party tab click on Add again. On the new window that pops up write in the APT line:

deb http://ftp.debian.org testing main contrib non-free

Click on Add Source and then on Close. This will close the Software sources window. If a message pops up just click on Close.

On the main window of Synaptic click on Reload. Wait a few minutes for the system to load the list of packages available. At the end an error message might come up telling you that that some public key is not available. Just ignore this message by clicking on Close.

After that, on the main synaptic window click on Search and search for

pdl

by writing that word in the Search entry and clicking on Search. On the search result listing on the right side of the window, click on the little box to the left of pdl, a selection menu will come up. Click on Mark for installation on that selection. On the popup window click on Mark

After that follow the same procedure by clicking again on Search and search for

pgplot

Click again on the boxes to the left of the search results of pgplot5 and pgperl and then click on Mark for installation in both cases. Click again on Mark on the popup window in both cases.

Follow again the same procedure for the package libterm-readline-gnu-perl Search for it and mark it for installation.

Click on Apply and then again on Apply on the popup window and wait a few minutes for the packages to be installed. Close the Changes applied window by clicking on Close

You can now close Synaptic. Click on File -> Quit

Open an terminal by selecting on the top bar Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal

On the terminal write

 perldl

This will let you use the PDL command line. In there you can type demo to get a list of demos. Run any of them to get a feeling for PDL.

Et voila!!