Appendix A. Obtaining, building, and installing gnuplot
The easiest way to install gnuplot on your local computer is to download and install a precompiled package. If you’re running Linux, there’s a good chance gnuplot is already installed; if not, you’ll have no difficulty finding an RPM or Debian package on the net. There are Fink packages for Mac OS X, and precompiled binaries for Windows as well. In section A.2 we consider some of these options in more detail.
If you’d like to be totally up to date and have access to the newest features, or if you want to start hacking on gnuplot yourself, you’ll have to build from source. Section A.3 in this appendix is will help you get started.
Gnuplot versions are generally labeled by a three-part version number, indicating major, minor, and bug-fix releases. Bug fix releases are prepared as needed (roughly twice a year). Minor releases introduce new features, but preserve backward compatibility for existing gnuplot command scripts. Major releases may break backward compatibility. The development version of a minor release is indicated by an odd version number, which is incremented to the next even number on promotion to a “released” version.