Installing Gnuplot 5.0 on Ubuntu

Question

I have been trying to install Gnuplot 5.0 from source on Ubuntu.

I followed the procedure given in the blog:

Installing gnuplot from source

I used the following commands:

tar xzf gnuplot-5.0.0.tar.gz
mkdir build
cd build
../gnuplot-5.0.0/configure --with-readline=gnu
make

Everything until the configure command works fine. However, I end up getting the following error when I run the make command:

In file included from ../../gnuplot-5.0.0/src/qtterminal/QtGnuplotWindow.cpp:187:0:

./ui_QtGnuplotSettings.h:13:25: fatal error: QtGui/QAction: No such file or directory

#include <QtGui/QAction>

Could someone guide on how to fix this issue? If there is an alternative easier way to install gnuplot 5.0.0. that would be helpful as well.

Answer 1

Here's a compilation of the various library-dev packages necessary for gnuplot in ubuntu. The package names should be the same under debian, and other distributions based on debian, like Mint. Additional -dev packages that are installed automatically with the ones named are not listed or in (parentheses).

To use external libreadline instead of gnuplot's builtin replacement (recommended)

libreadline-dev

To have the mathematical functions provided by the cerf library (can't hurt)

libcerf-dev

For the old interactive x11terminal

libx11-dev

For the pdfcairo, pngcairo, epscairo terminals

libcairo2-dev
libpango1-dev

additionally for the interactive wxt terminal (try ./configure --with-wx-single-threaded in case of problems (e.g. make check crashes). If it doesn't compile with complaints about "XInitThreads", try TERMLIBS="-lX11" ./configure.)

libwxgtk2.8-dev or libwxgtk3.0-dev
libgtk2.0-dev

For the libgd-based png, gif, jpeg bitmap terminals

libgd-dev
(libxpm-dev)
(libjpeg-turbo8-dev)
(libtiff5-dev)

For the interactive qt terminal (./configure --with-qt=qt5)

qtbase5-dev
libqt5svg5-dev
qttools5-dev-tools  # on Linux Mint (as per comment by Allan below)

alternatively for qt4 (./configure --with-qt=qt4)

libqt4-dev

For the lua terminal

liblua5.2-dev (also read ./INSTALL)

For the text-mode caca terminal (./configure --with-caca)

libcaca-dev

The list is not final (i don't have a spare system to try out all the dependencies at the moment). Feel free to add, update and correct!

Answer 2

I simply followed the instructions in the file INSTALL and it worked perfectly:

$ tar xzf gnuplot-5.0.1.tar.gz
$ cd gnuplot-5.0.1
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

After doing this, when I call gnuplot anywhere, the result is

$ gnuplot

G N U P L O T
Version 5.0 patchlevel 1    last modified 2015-06-07 

Copyright (C) 1986-1993, 1998, 2004, 2007-2015
Thomas Williams, Colin Kelley and many others

gnuplot home:     http://www.gnuplot.info
faq, bugs, etc:   type "help FAQ"
immediate help:   type "help"  (plot window: hit 'h')