Scilab 5.5.2 on Ubuntu 18.04

Question

Scilab 6 seems to have some error on Ubuntu 18.04, so I want to try running 5.5.2. I downloaded the binaries from Scilab website. When I try to run with ./scilab in the bin folder, it gives an authentication problem with something called a libEGL license:

$ ./scilab
libEGL warning: DRI2: failed to authenticate
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Is there any fix to this?

Answer 1

On clean VM with Ubuntu MATE 18.04.5 LTS the binary version (scilab-5.5.2.bin.linux-x86_64.tar.gz) crashes with Segmentation fault (core dumped) caused by Java-related problem with thirdparty/java.

So we need to install Scilab 5.5.2 by manually downloading packages from 16.04 LTS repository with all their dependencies. Below is the complete instruction:

cd ~/Downloads
# scilab files
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_all.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab-cli_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_all.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab-data_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_all.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab-doc_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_all.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab-full-bin_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab-include_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab-minimal-bin_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/scilab/scilab-test_5.5.2-2ubuntu3_all.deb
# scilab dependencies
wget -c http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/h/hdf5/libhdf5-10_1.8.16+docs-4ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/suitesparse/libsuitesparseconfig4.4.6_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/suitesparse/libamd2.4.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/libm/libmatio/libmatio2_1.5.3-1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/suitesparse/libcamd2.4.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/suitesparse/libccolamd2.9.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/suitesparse/libcolamd2.9.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/suitesparse/libcholmod3.0.6_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb
wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/suitesparse/libumfpack5.7.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libcurl3
sudo apt-get install ./libhdf5-10_1.8.16+docs-4ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb \
./libsuitesparseconfig4.4.6_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb \
./libamd2.4.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb \
./libmatio2_1.5.3-1_amd64.deb \
./libcamd2.4.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb \
./libccolamd2.9.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb \
./libcolamd2.9.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb \
./libcholmod3.0.6_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb \
./libumfpack5.7.1_4.4.6-1_amd64.deb \
./scilab*.deb

Then we need to get OpenJDK 8

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre openjdk-8-jre-headless

Then we need to edit Scilab desktop file to use OpenJDK 8:

sudo sed -i "s/^Exec=scilab -f$/Exec=env JAVA_HOME=\/usr\/lib\/jvm\/java-8-openjdk-$(dpkg --print-architecture)\/jre scilab -f/" /usr/share/applications/scilab.desktop
sudo sed -i "s/^Exec=scilab-adv-cli$/Exec=env JAVA_HOME=\/usr\/lib\/jvm\/java-8-openjdk-$(dpkg --print-architecture)\/jre scilab-adv-cli/" /usr/share/applications/scilab-adv-cli.desktop

Optionally we can create an alias for scilab to use OpenJDK 8:

echo "alias scilab='env JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-$(dpkg --print-architecture) scilab'" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "alias scilab-adv-cli='env JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-$(dpkg --print-architecture) scilab-adv-cli'" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "alias xcos='env JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-$(dpkg --print-architecture) xcos'" >> ~/.bashrc

And finally we need to pin/hold all manually installed packages to prevent their upgrades:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/pin-scilab
Package: libamd2.4.1
Pin: version 4.4.6-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libcamd2.4.1
Pin: version 4.4.6-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libccolamd2.9.1
Pin: version 4.4.6-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libcholmod3.0.6
Pin: version 4.4.6-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libcolamd2.9.1
Pin: version 4.4.6-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libhdf5-10
Pin: version 1.8.16+docs-4ubuntu1.1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libmatio2
Pin: version 1.5.3-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libsuitesparseconfig4.4.6
Pin: version 4.4.6-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: libumfpack5.7.1
Pin: version 4.4.6-1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab-cli
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab-data
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab-doc
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab-full-bin
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab-include
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab-minimal-bin
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: scilab-test
Pin: version 5.5.2-2ubuntu3
Pin-Priority: 1337
EOF

The resulting version is fully-functional - you can use ATOMS, Xcos and so on.

---

But we still need official reaction from Scilab Ubuntu (or Debian) maintainers.
Scilab is very feature rich application and it is very pity that it is non-well-maintained...