Installing Dynare on Debian or Ubuntu

Since Dynare 4.0.0, precompiled binaries packages and source packages are available for Debian and Ubuntu distributions of GNU/Linux. These packages work with both Octave and Matlab. They are available through standard package repositories.

Availability

On Debian GNU/Linux

Packages are available for Lenny (the current testing and future stable distribution). They should also work on Sid (the unstable distribution).

The Etch (the current stable distribution, version 4.0) is not supported, since it does not provide Octave version 3.

Binaries are available for the i386 and amd64 architectures. See below for how to recompile the package if you use another architecture.

On Ubuntu

Packages are available for Hardy Heron (Ubuntu version 8.04). No other distribution is supported.

Binaries are available for the i386 and amd64 architectures. See below for how to recompile the package if you use another architecture.

Adding the correct repository to APT sources

This should be done only before the first installation.

First, for security reasons, you should download the archive signing key, at [http://www.dynare.org/dynare.public.key], and then add it to your keyring with apt-key add dynare.public.key.

This can be done in one step, assuming that you have installed wget:

sudo wget -O - http://www.dynare.org/dynare.public.key | apt-key add -

Then modify your sources.list file, according to your Linux distribution:

On Debian GNU/Linux

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list (as root), and add the following two lines:

deb http://www.dynare.org/debian lenny main contrib
deb-src http://www.dynare.org/debian lenny main

On Ubuntu

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list (with sudo), and add the following two lines:

deb http://www.dynare.org/ubuntu hardy main contrib
deb-src http://www.dynare.org/ubuntu hardy main

Installing the package(s)

Using your favorite package manager (apt-get, aptitude, synaptic), update your package list. You should now see three new packages: dynare, dynare-matlab7.4 and dynare-matlab7.5.

The dynare package contains a fully functional installation of Dynare for both Octave and Matlab. The installation is made under /usr/lib/dynare. The package contains: the preprocessor, the M-files, and the optimized dynamic libraries for Octave.

Since the dynare package does not contain optimized dynamic libraires for Matlab, you should install one of the two dynare-matlab* for full performance under Matlab:

• the dynare-matlab7.4 package was compiled with Matlab 7.4 (R2007a), and *may* work with older releases

• the dynare-matlab7.5 package was compiled with Matlab 7.5 (R2007b), and has been reported to work with Matlab 7.6 (R2008a)

The packages also contain documentation (HTML and PDF manual, PDF userguide, and other documents). These are installed in /usr/share/doc/dynare. The manual and the userguide are also registered in the DHelp system, and in scroolkeeper (the online help system in Gnome and KDE).

For the moment, the packages don't contain any example MOD-file, but this should change in the near future.

Don't forget to regularly run your package manager to get the most recent version of Dynare.

Using Dynare

You can run Dynare from Octave or Matlab, by adding the correct path at runtime:

addpath /usr/lib/dynare/matlab

Under Octave, you may also want to type:

mark_as_command dynare

Then, launch Dynare with:

dynare filename.mod

Under Octave, it is possible to create a startup file which adds the correct path at every start. See DynareOctave on this topic and on other Octave-specific issues.

Compiling the package from source

You can be interested in recompiling the packages, especially if binaries for your architecture are not available.

Download and unpack the source in the current directory by typing:

apt-src install dynare

(you may be asked the root password for installing packages necessary for the building process)

This should have created a dynare-??? directory, where ??? is the current version number. Go into that directory, and type:

dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc

This should build the dynare-??? package (in a .deb file), and also the dynare-matlab7.4 (resp. dynare-matlab7.5) package if you have Matlab 7.4 (resp. 7.5) intalled under /usr/local/matlab74 (resp. /usr/local/matlab75). You can tune the debian/rules file if your Matlab installation is located at another place.

Note: if you want to become the official Dynare package builder for your favourite architecture, please contact Dynare authors and we will distribute your binaries.