1) What is output of
ldd /usr/local/bin/octave
2) Try to run
strace /usr/local/bin/octave --force-gui 2>strace.txt
1.) ldd /usr/local/bin/octave
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xb76fd000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0xb75ab000)
libutil.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libutil.so.1 (0xb75a7000)
libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0xb74ba000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0xb7494000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xb7477000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xb745e000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb72fb000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0xb72d7000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xb72d3000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb76fe000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0xb72d0000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb72ca000)
2.) I don't have much experience decoding stack traces, but I did see a lot of these:
recv(3, 0x89dfb70, 4096, 0) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)