I was trying to use the textread function in Octave 3.2, under Ubuntu 10.04. All I got was this error message: error: `textread' undefined near line 5 column 9 I learnt from the internet that I need the io package from Octave-forge. So, I downloaded it and tried to install it from Octave with this command: pkg install io-1.0.14.tar.gz Unfortunately, that also gave an error message: Error: the following dependencies where unsatisfied: io needs octave 3.4.0 So, I found out the io-1.0.13 package is compatible with Octave 3.2. The older versions can be found from the Octave-forge directory tree. I downloaded that version and tried to install it with this Octave command: pkg install io-1.0.13.tar.gz Still an error message. make: mkoctfile: Command not found make: *** [textread.oct] Error 127 'make' returned the following error: make: Entering directory `/tmp/oct-TJBAXw/io/src' mkoctfile textread.cc make: Leaving directory `/tmp/oct-TJBAXw/io/src' ...