Re: Debian packages similar to mathematica or mathlab ?

[20100 p <20100p@gmail.com>]

Hi,

> There are probably a few others I missed, but I believe that these are the major
> options (will be happy to hear about any more good alternatives to these, I'm
> trying to compile a list of various free solutions to mathematical work).

Let's not forget Python and its scientific suite.
Associated with numarray, and matplotlib for example, its use is very
similar to Matlab.
There are a lot of Python packages/modules for numerical computing and
visualization.
A few links :
General :
http://amath.colorado.edu/faculty/fperez/python/scicomp/
http://www.python.org/moin/NumericAndScientific
http://www.thinkware.se/cgi-bin/thinki.cgi/PythonInScience

http://www.scipy.org/
http://starship.python.net/~hinsen/ScientificPython/

Libraries :
http://www.python.org/moin/NumericAndScientific/Libraries

Plotting :
http://www.python.org/moin/NumericAndScientific/Plotting
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

Visualization (3D) :
VTK has python bindings :
http://public.kitware.com/VTK/index.php

There are dozens of other scientific libraries for which python
bindings exist, follow the links above to get an exhaustive list.
Moreover, the scientific python community is active and enlarges
itself day after day.
Hope this helps,
Vincent