MATLAB substitute

[pillu]

Hi all

I am pursuing my PhD in electrical engineering and use MATLAB quite a bit. I was looking for substitutes to install on my home computer. It seems that I have two options - Scilab and Octave.

Which one is the most easy to switch to from MATLAB ? I would love to use an open source software but do not want to spend the time to learn a whole new language. Any tips ?

[slimdog360]

octave, make sure you also install the octave-forge package. Pretty much all the commands are the same except for a few plotting commands. You will also need the gnu-plot package to plot with octave, this is why there is a difference in some of the plotting commands.

Scilab goes about things in a different way and as such many of its commands are different also. This is not to say its worse, you may as well find that Scilab is better then Matlab its self, but if you want compatability go with Octave.

[aysiu]

Isn't there a native Linux Matlab...?

[slimdog360]

Isn't there a native Linux Matlab...?
yeah, but he wanted something open source and Im guessing something free.

[emix]

Scilab has this tool:

Matlab to Scilab Translator (http://www.scilab.org/doc/demos_html/node264.html)

[pillu]

Isn't there a native Linux Matlab...?

Yeah there is...but it isn't free...I guess I should try my hand at something free before paying for MATLAB

[Jbloudg20]

Check at your bookstore. I was able to purchas Matlab for liek $50. It was well worth it IMO.

[neoflight]

octave, make sure you also install the octave-forge package. Pretty much all the commands are the same except for a few plotting commands. You will also need the gnu-plot package to plot with octave, this is why there is a difference in some of the plotting commands.

Scilab goes about things in a different way and as such many of its commands are different also. This is not to say its worse, you may as well find that Scilab is better then Matlab its self, but if you want compatability go with Octave.

is there a builtin editor for octave? if not how do i make the code in text file and run ? i mean something like the matlab editor? thanks

[alancaerdydd]

Check at your bookstore. I was able to purchas Matlab for liek $50. It was well worth it IMO.

I suspect that that is the student version. If I remember rightly it's exactly the same except that all graphs have a banner on them saying Matlab Student version. I don't think it's easy (or legal) to remove that which is awkward for PhD/publication stuff. However, probably quite simple to interface with gnuplot to graph arrays.

Haven't had time to look at Octave yet, does it have a function comparable to simulink for quick building of models?

[slimdog360]

is there a builtin editor for octave? if not how do i make the code in text file and run ? i mean something like the matlab editor? thanks

I use koctave and use the text editor with that. I think there is also a new frontend for octave running around somewhere but I cant remember what its called.

[adamkane]

It's called octave-workshop, and it's too difficult to install on Ubuntu:
http://www.math.mcgill.ca/loisel/octave-workshop/

Score one more for Fedora.

[neoflight]

i actually found out recently that i can use any editor and save the file as something.m and run that file like that in matlab; just use the filename with out extension. if the file doesnt have any extension then run as


> source "something" with quotes.


so gedit is fine with me... :D

[roderikk]

Yep, and gedit of course has native .m file code highlighting so that works perfect!

To get a hang of all the plotting with gnu plot you might want to check out this site: http://t16web.lanl.gov/Kawano/gnuplot/plot1-e.html

[tkjacobsen]

is there a builtin editor for octave? if not how do i make the code in text file and run ? i mean something like the matlab editor? thanks

In gedit you can also add an external tool, which is running the script in octave - then closing..

[adamkane]

You can enter data in TeXmacs (MATLAB style), and TeXmacs will display the solutions as well:
http://www.texmacs.org/tmdoc/plugins/octave/octave-main.en.html

Thanks for the gnuplot link.

TeXmacs does gnuplot as well. Load the gnuplot session, enter the Section 4. Graph Gallery Examples, then press enter:
http://www.texmacs.org/tmdoc/examples/casdoc.en.html

[venik212]

Is Octave currently being developed/debugged/extended?

[tkjacobsen]

Yes. they released version 2.9.9 on october 2, 2006 - which will soon replace the testing version 2.1.73, and their mailing lists are very active.

[WebDrake]

The one really outstanding issue is graphics. Octave's object-oriented plotting model still does not match the capabilities of MATLAB. It is still possible to achieve good plots, just not as easy as one might like.

I think this will be fixed soon, but probably not as soon as we'd hope for. I recall from some mailing list debate that it is likely to not be fully implemented in the soon-to-be-released 3.0, but should come in an update to that.

[Jbloudg20]

I attpempted to install octave workshop, ad it was a nightmare.

If only fedora wasn't such a PITA for simple stuff, I'd probably make a permanent switch.

[fadder]

matplotlib seems to provide quite good graphics, with MATLAB-style functions, but from a python environment.

I have just started testing this, but the combination of numpy (to get some nice array functionality) and ipython seem to work great.

[vinx]

It was no nightmare at all to install the workshop: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=150310&page=5#42

So give another try!

[eneth80]

>It was no nightmare at all to install the workshop: >http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0310&page=5#42

when i do ./configure
I get:
..
checking does moc work?... yes
checking can I compile moc_myqt.cpp?... configure: error: couldn't compile moc_myqt.cpp

[Argus]

They is also SAGE http://www.sagemath.org/

[mattflaschen]

>It was no nightmare at all to install the workshop: >http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0310&page=5#42

when i do ./configure
I get:
..
checking does moc work?... yes
checking can I compile moc_myqt.cpp?... configure: error: couldn't compile moc_myqt.cpp

On my Gutsy system, I fixed this by running:

sudo update-alternatives --config moc

and choosing qt4.

Of course, this will probably break something later and I'll have to change it back.