You should probably ask on the Octave help list (
http://www.nabble.com/Octave-f1895.html). I've never had any trouble with the Debian packages, myself, but on my own computer I compile it from source, so I'm not up on any issues with packages. I'm pretty sure that Octave (v3.0.1) is working fine on PelicanHPC, both 32 and 64 bit versions, I have done a little informal testing. PelicanHPC uses packages from Debian Lenny.
Now that I think of it, I've never seen Debian packages of Octave v3.0.2. Are you compiling yourself? If so, then maybe you have some problem such as a bad/miscompiled LINPACK library.