Maths - Alternative application for Derive 6

[TuxCrafter]

Hello everybody,

http://www.chartwellyorke.com/derive.html

I have to use the proprietary math application Derive (see link) , I am searching for open source (FLOSS) alternatives for this program,

Can somebody help me with this problem?

Many thanks in advance.

[euler_fan]

Plotting--gnuplot
numerical work--octave
symbolic work--maxima
statistics--R

There might be others, but those are the usual suggestions.

Hope it helps.

[rybu]

Pari, SAGE, and GAP are all useful for a variety of tasks. Do you want to accomplish anything in particular?

SAGE: http://www.sagemath.org/

PARI: http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/

GAP: http://www.gap-system.org/

If you have more specific tasks you're interested in, there's likely more specific software.

[TuxCrafter]

Thanks you all for posting, I will take it step by step. First I would like to find an application that has an interactive plotter like with you Graphical Calculator. So not a static gnuplot output.

I could not find the applications: statistics and SAGE

sudo apt-get install pari-doc pari-extra pari-gp pari-gp2c
sudo apt-get install octave2.9 octave2.9-info octave2.9-doc
sudo apt-get install wxmaxima maxima-doc
sudo apt-get install gap

wxMaxima looks nice! A simple howto to get started with all those tools would be recommended

I installed pari and I have no idea how to start this program, It is there somewhere: sudo dpkg -S pari

[euler_fan]

For statistics the name of the program is R.

Google "R" (no quotes) and the site has a very nice intro which will run you through lots of different things.

There are a number of threads in this part of the forums related to R if you want more information, especially about gui front ends.

[TuxCrafter]

Thanks, for clearing up the R issue.

I would like to start with something simple like plotting the following below functions and interactively change the max and min values of X and Y. Then I would like to interactively go to the min,max and intersection points with the X and Y-ax of the functions.

y=½x²+6x+5
y=-¼x²+2x
y=2x²-6x+5
y=-2x²-8x

Which application is the most suitable for this job?

[rybu]

Thanks, for clearing up the R issue.

I would like to start with something simple like plotting the following below functions and interactively change the max and min values of X and Y. Then I would like to interactively go to the min,max and intersection points with the X and Y-ax of the functions.

y=½x²+6x+5
y=-¼x²+2x
y=2x²-6x+5
y=-2x²-8x

Which application is the most suitable for this job?

pari/gp has a simply yet functional plotting facility:

                                     ^--------
? plot(x=0,1,x^2)

        1 |'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''_"
          |                                                            x |
          |                                                          _"  |
          |                                                         x    |
          |                                                       _"     |
          |                                                     _"       |
          |                                                    x         |
          |                                                  x"          |
          |                                                _"            |
          |                                              _"              |
          |                                            _"                |
          |                                          _"                  |
          |                                        x"                    |
          |                                     _x"                      |
          |                                   _x                         |
          |                                _x"                           |
          |                             _x"                              |
          |                          _x"                                 |
          |                      __x"                                    |
          |                  _xx"                                        |
          |            __xx""                                            |
        0 ______xxxx""",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
          0                                                              1

If you want a proper graphical representation, the ploth() command works. This gives a graph of the sin() function from 0 to 2pi:

ploth(x=0,2*Pi,sin(x))

I ran that command in the gp interface. One you've installed pari/gp, just type "gp" at the prompt and you'll enter the command-line interface.

The nice thing about pari/gp is it is a language, so you can do a lot of scripting. It probably wouldn't be too much work to make a python script to create a GUI for all the features you're looking for. Somebody may have done that, for all I know. I'll keep my eyes open for it. Very likely SAGE *has* such a GUI interface. I haven't installed it (yet) on my system, because it's such a huge package.

If you want to install SAGE, you're going to have to go to the SAGE webpage and follow the install instructions. It is not in the Ubuntu repository yet. SAGE's goal is to be a Mathematica/MatLab/Maple open-source complete replacement.

Ah, here is a minimalist GUI for pari/gp so that you won't have to install the whole SAGE package. It's called "pariguide":

Screenshots:





Webpage: http://www.skalatan.de/pariguide/