Hello!

I'd just thought I'd broadcast to the list Hélio Guilherme's excellent step-by-step solution to building and installing the latest version of -gretl- on an openSUSE Linux to system which I only just found via Google this afternoon:

==========================================================================================
# Hélio Guilherme, 10/Apr/2014
# Step by Step on how to build official gretl package in OpenSuSE 13.1 x64

# This symbol (#) means a comment line
# we will use Gnome Terminal (bash) and the commands are shown after prompt $
# You will need the root password when requested

# 1 - Open a Gnome Terminal or xterm (search with Terminal)
# You will see a shell prompt (username <at> machine_name:~>) in my case is
# helio <at> linux-techno:~>  The part ~ changes to the current path and ~ means the home path, in my case is /home/helio/
# In this tutorial we represent $ as the prompt
#

# 2 - Download gretl's source code (latest official build is 1.9.92)
# From the http://gretl.sourceforge.net/ pages find the correct link
$ wget -O gretl-1.9.92.tar.xz http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/gretl/gretl/1.9.92/gretl-1.9.92.tar.xz?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fgretl%2Ffiles%2Fgretl%2F1.9.92%2F&ts=1397139707&use_mirror=softlayer-ams

# 3 - Extract the files from the package (around 7MB) (if you press the Tab key after typing gr it will complete
file or directory name)
$ tar xf gretl-1.9.92.tar.xz

# 4 - The gretl-1.9.14 directory is created (in GUI is a Folder)
# Change into that directory
$ cd gretl-1.9.92

# 5 - The file README.packages should contain instructions on how to build in different Linux Distributions.
# Unfortunately for OpenSuSE 13.1 and gretl 1.9.92, this file is not updated. You can see the content of the
file with:
$ more README.packages

# 6 - Installing dependencies (even if they are already installed). It may ask to install other required applications.
# You will be asked to enter the root password and to confirm the download and install
$ sudo zypper install gcc make

$ sudo zypper install  gmp-devel mpfr-devel fftw3-devel lapack-devel gnuplot libxml2-devel curl-devel readline-devel
gtk3-devel gtksourceview-devel

# 7 - From this point we will configure, build and install gretl.
# We are going to make a system wide install for all users (a local install, in user home is not considered in
this document).
# The configure script will check if all required software is available, and prepare the build files. You
can add the option --help to see the diverse options it use. We will reduce the output text when building
gretl, with --enable-quiet-build.
$ ./configure --enable-quiet-build

# 8 - Assuming that there were no missing dependencies, you will see a report ending with "Now type 'make' to
build gretl."
# You will build gretl then:
$ make

# 9a - When the compilation (building) ends you can try to run gretl before installing:
$ gui2/gretl_x11

# 9b - Then you may install gretl globally (again needing root password):
$ sudo make install

# 10 - In OpenSuSE we must issue ldconfig before using gretl.
$ sudo /sbin/ldconfig

# 11 You can now start gretl from GUI (in one of Applications, Science, Education or Econometrics) or
Terminal with:
$ gretl &
==========================================================================================

Four things to add:

(1) I've edited the -wget- command to run the latest version, which worked for me. I've also edited out all mentions of 1.9.14 to 1.9.92;

(2) I had to run

$ ./configure --enable-quiet-build --disable-json

instead as leaving JSON enabled was causing the configuration to spew out junk output which appeared to be messing up the configuration process;

(3) don't be put off if step 9a throws an error before installing. It did it to me and I still completed the process. It does, I hasten to add, work *after* -gretl- is installed;

(4) The & in step 11 isn't necessary.

I ran -gretl- both from the command window and from the Kickoff menu and I'm pleased to report that it runs beautifully.

I'd like to thank Hélio very much for this excellent guide and hope it's of use to others. :)

--
Clive Nicholas

"My colleagues in the social sciences talk a great deal about methodology. I prefer to call it style." -- Freeman J. Dyson