Which software(s) can serve as Mathematica, Maple or MATLAB equivalents?

Question

I'd like to know the equivalents of Mathematica, Maple, or MATLAB on Ubuntu, since both are costly.

Solution 1

Octave provides a lot of the functionality of Matlab, and can run some Matlab programs. Sage is the open source "equivalent" of Mathematica.

Solution 2

I use QT Octave as GNU Octave does not have a nice GUI. Though most of the commands work out pretty well, some functions may not work as expected in MATLAB

Solution 3

I would suggest python with appropriate libraries as a good option.

It is not quite a replacement, since the python language is not as specialised for mathematics as matlab/mathematica syntax, but it combines a relatively good syntax for interactive mathematics with a fully-capable programming language.

You will want to install the packages:

• ipython - a much nicer version of the standard python shell, with session saving, tab-completion, etc. See their website. You might also want ipython-notebook which provides a browser-based interactive session (see image below).

• python-numpy python-scipy python-matplotlib - Core scientific python libraries; Numpy provides efficient arrays for handling large amounts of data; Scipy provides algorithms, eg clustering, FFT, numerical integration, linear algebra; and Matplotlib provides a wide variety of plotting functions (including an interface designed for interactive use).

• spyder - I normally just use these libraries with a text editor and a ipython terminal session, but if you are more comfortable with an integrated environment you may look at spyder, an IDE designed in the vein of matlab/mathematica using the above libraries. See screenshot below.

Solution 4

You can also give R a try. It is an open-source, free, programming environment. It has both powerful visualization capabilities, power numerical libraries, and everything you would expect from a functional programming language (well, except a compiler).

Solution 5

Reduce, Maxima, Sage, Axiom (in three variations), and others, all are free and will provide you computer algebra on Linux.

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Comments

[david6]

I strongly recommend QT Octave, or called from C++ (which I have also been experimenting with).

[Josh Pinto]

Good answer, gets straight to the point. GNU Octave is pretty good, although, yeah I would like to see a GUI made for it. Sage can also be used to perform numerical computations. It's the fusion of GNU Octave, MATLAB, Scilab, Numpy, Scipy, Maple, Mathematica and other mathematics software written in a common python programming language.

[chronitis]

If you want to use R, I recommend looking at RStudio ( rstudio.org ), which has an interface which should be familiar to a MATLAB user. It isn't in the Ubuntu repositories but you can download a .deb package from their website.

[Josh Pinto]

Eh, not really -- FreeMat is rarely updated. The latest version available in the software centre was released 2008.