octave + spm support in nipype

[satra]

Summary

from @gllmflndn:

I was mentioning SPM+Octave
support in nipype. A new version of Octave, 4.4, is about to be
released. I would envisage that most if not all of the functionalities
available through nipype would work with the latest release of SPM12.

once or before 4.4 is released, we should consider testing this.

[miykael]

I've briefly looked into this, but wasn't able to make it work yet. But for future approaches, here's how you probably can tackle/test it:

1. Description on how to use SPM with Octave can be found here.
2. A docker environment that could test Octave and SPM could probably be setup with something as follows:

docker run --rm kaczmarj/neurodocker:master generate \
           -b neurodebian:stretch-non-free -p apt \
           --install make gcc g++ octave \
           --user=neuro \
           --miniconda miniconda_version="4.3.31" \
                       conda_install="python=3.6 traits" \
                       pip_install="nipype" \
                       env_name="neuro" \
                       activate=True \
           --user=root \
           --run-bash "curl http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/download/restricted/eldorado/spm12.zip > /opt/spm12.zip" \
           --run-bash "unzip /home/neuro/spm12.zip -d /opt" \
           --run-bash "cd /home/login/spm12/src; make distclean PLATFORM=octave; make PLATFORM=octave && make install PLATFORM=octave" \
           --run 'chown -R neuro /home/neuro' \
           --user=neuro \
           --workdir /home/neuro \
           --no-check-urls > Dockerfile

At the moment I'm struggling with getting octave version 4.4 into docker. Perhaps somebody else has more luck/skills.

[gllmflndn]

Octave 4.4 is probably going to be released this week but it might be worth waiting for distribution packages, and even then, I think it's more to have the mechanism in place rather than seeing it as a viable alternative to the MCR (yet) - some useful changes will now only be available in Octave 5.0 early next year.

For a Docker image containing a build of the current development version of Octave, see this: https://github.com/mtmiller/octave-snapshot
@cmaumet has been using it here: incf-nidash/nidmresults-spm#46

[cmaumet]

Hi everyone! To add up to what @gllmflndn just said, here is the link to the Octave+SPM docker image we use: https://github.com/cmaumet/octave-spm. The docker image is then called and used here.

[gllmflndn]

In the meantime Octave 4.4 has been released so installation will hopefully get simpler. An alternative would be to use Flatpak.