# Lapack question - difficulties installing Linalg

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lapack-question-difficulties-installing-linalg/108229>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 30, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lapack-question-difficulties-installing-linalg/108229 "2007-06-30T15:56:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Axel_E)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lapack-question-difficulties-installing-linalg/108229/1 "2007-06-30T15:56:29Z")

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Dear all,

I am having trouble installing the Linalg package.  
I am working on OpenSuse 10.2, and I installed the  
Lapack from an rpm, successfully.  
Now, I get the following:

dhcppc1:/usr/local/linalg-0.3.2-i686-linux-ruby18 # ruby install.rb  
config  
config ext/lapack  
checking for f2c.h… yes  
checking for main() in -lf2c… no  
A full LAPACK installation was not found.  
\*\*\* extconf.rb failed \*\*\*  
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of  
necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more  
details. You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:  
–with-opt-dir  
–without-opt-dir  
–with-opt-include  
–without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include  
–with-opt-lib  
–without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib  
–with-make-prog  
–without-make-prog  
–srcdir=.  
–curdir  
–ruby=/usr/local/bin/ruby  
–with-f2clib  
–without-f2clib  
install.rb:127:in `config': configuration failed (RuntimeError) from install.rb:78:in`each’  
from install.rb:77:in `chdir' from install.rb:77:in`each’  
from install.rb:74:in `each' from install.rb:124:in`config’  
from install.rb:215:in `send’  
from install.rb:215

I tried “ruby install.rb config --without-f2clib”, but that doesn’t work  
either. What am I missing ?

Best regards,

Axel

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Axel_E)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 6:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lapack-question-difficulties-installing-linalg/108229/2 "2007-06-30T18:32:44Z")

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Quoting Axel E. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid):

> checking for main() in -lf2c… no  
> –without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include  
> from install.rb:78:in `each’  
> Best regards,
> 
> ## Axel
> 
> GMX FreeMail: 1 GB Postfach, 5 E-Mail-Adressen, 10 Free SMS.  
> Alle Infos und kostenlose Anmeldung: [GMX E-Mail ✉ sichere & kostenlose E-Mail-Adresse ✉](http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freemail)

I get the same thing on my Gentoo system. It looks like it needs two  
packages,  
“f2c” and “libf2c” in addition to LAPACK. But installing them did not  
fix this.  
I think it’s a bug in linalg – the date I see on RubyForge is  
2004-06-25. “f2c”  
is a Fortran-to-C translator that’s positively prehistoric. It dates  
back to  
when there wasn’t a real Gnu Fortran compiler, so they translated  
Fortran to C  
and used the C compiler. This may have worked three years ago but it  
probably  
needs to get updated. If all you need is linear algebra/LAPACK, I think  
the  
Ruby bindings to the Gnu Scientific Library (“gsl”) have that.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Axel_E)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 6:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lapack-question-difficulties-installing-linalg/108229/3 "2007-06-30T18:58:45Z")

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Quoting removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid:

> > config ext/lapack  
> > –without-opt-dir  
> > –without-f2clib  
> > either. What am I missing ?  
> > I get the same thing on my Gentoo system. It looks like it needs two  
> > Ruby bindings to the Gnu Scientific Library (“gsl”) have that.

I just installed Ruby-Gsl ([https://rubyforge.org/projects/rb-gsl/](https://rubyforge.org/projects/rb-gsl/))  
successfully,  
so you might want to see if it does what you want and installs on your  
system.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Axel_E)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 7:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/lapack-question-difficulties-installing-linalg/108229/4 "2007-06-30T19:56:52Z")

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> I just installed Ruby-Gsl ([https://rubyforge.org/projects/rb-gsl/](https://rubyforge.org/projects/rb-gsl/))  
> successfully,  
> so you might want to see if it does what you want and installs on your  
> system.

Actually, I was trying to get some speedup  
for the clusterer gem to work … the author of that  
gem tells users to install Linalg.

So unfortunately rb-gsl (which I have also installed)  
isn’t helping here.

Thank you for your reply,

Axel