Applications

Just pressing the tab key quickly a couple of times in the shell will display something like "Display all 2312 possibilities? (y or n)" (if you answer 'y', you can use space or page-up/down to scroll... q to quit).
These are the commands (programs) available to you to run by name! Many will be very small, or will be parts of other programs that are not very useful on their own.

On this page are listed some of the installed programs that are likely to be of use to the ETS users for various tasks.


SYSTEM (see also the "commands" page and general unixish manuals)

• htop, top --- console-based display and control of system usage and processes
• xosview --- graphical viewing of system use
• ps, df, du, free --- info on processes, disk fullness, disk usage, memory use
• cp, mv, rm --- basic file operations

SIMULATION

• scilab --- matrix computation and block diagram etc. system, pretty advanced
• octave --- matrix computation system with similar syntax to matlab and with very quick startup. Not so many functions.
  
  
• matlab --- there are several versions installed, as each has its own special bugs. "matlab" alone should give you the newest, "matlab-6.1", "matlab-6.5", "matlab-7.0" etc. call specific versions. The options -nojvm or -nodesktop start the matlab prompt in the terminal instead of trying to open a big graphical window.
  Versions >= 7.0 use the "matlab" command to start a program called "MATLAB", so if you want to kill this process you need to killall -9 MATLAB ... not unprecedented, since it seems bad at obeying Ctrl-C!
  
  
• comsol (was `femlab') --- a recent version is installed. This is a multiphysics simulation environment: a way of solving many linked PDEs on various domains. There are physics-specific modules (e.g. Electromagnetics) that can simplify setting up models. Comsol now (Sep 2005) has a very matlab-like scripting interpreter built in, and if you need to run it with access to further matlab functions the command "comsol matlab" can be used. If viewing heavy graphics over the network, performance may well be bad. Comsol has the clever feature of allowing a client-server system. If you type "comsol server" on magsim, it will start a program that listens for other computers connecting to use the calculation part of femlab on magsim. You will see a port-number given when you run this command. Then, start "femlab client" on the remote computer (in ms-windows there is a femlab-client icon in some start menu or other), and on the right-tab fill in your system username and password, the hostname of magsim.ets.kth.se, and the port number you were told by the server. All files and display will then be on your client, and calculations will be on magsim.
  
  
• Ace --- note, the capital A ! ABB's FEM program running ever so much faster than on the old HP-UX machines.
  
• sandys --- another venerable ABB program: see the manual in /opt/sandys/manual.pdf .
  
  
• dymola --- it's there, and is a multi-physics modelling system.
  
• saber --- a general lumped element circuit modelling system, apparently like a super-duper spice.
  
  

SYMBOLIC MATHS

• maple --- command-line symbolic maths program
  
• xmaple --- the same, with a Java-based GUI
  
• axiom --- a highly advanced system, developed over several decades and now free software. Command line only. Strongly typed, and fussy. See the manuals in /opt/axiom -- use kdvi to view them! Try, for example, integrate(1/sin(x), x) To exit, type )quit (the ')' is needed to show non-maths commands)
  
• euler --- complex number / matrix / interval and plotting program
  
• maxima --- computer algebra system
  
• Macaulay2 --- "a new software system devoted to supporting research in algebraic geometry and commutative algebra"
  
• yacas --- (yet another) computer algebra system
  
  

COMPILERS and programming tools

• gcc (cc), g++ (c++) --- the GNU C and C++ compilers
  
• g77 --- the GNU FORTRAN77 compiler
  
• gmake, make --- the GNU 'make' program, for automated compilation
  
• javac --- the Blackdown Java compiler
  
• java --- the Blackdown Java runtime
  

EDITORS/TYPESETTING/WORD-PROCESSING

• vim, ted, nedit, emacs, xedit --- oldish text editors
  
• kate, kedit, gedit --- modern GUI editors (inferior to vim!)
  
• oowriter, ooimpress, oocalc --- multiplatform word-processor, presentation and spreadsheet programs of OpenOffice.org
  
• kword, kpresenter, kspread --- similar but not as thorough - parts of KDE
  
• kile, texmacs, lyx --- various approaches to automated and semiautomated use of latex for typesetting
  
• latex, bibtex --- the beast itself, for command-line use, along with the companion bibliography generator
  
• xfig, dia, kivio --- for technical drawing
  

DOCUMENT VIEWERS

• kghostview, gv, ggv --- viewers for one or more of pdf, ps and dvi files
  
• kdvi, xdvi --- DVI (latex output) file viewers
  
• kpdf, xpdf --- PDF file viewers
  
• acroread --- proprietary viewer for pdf files
  

PICTURE/AUDIO/VIDEO MANIPULATION/CONVERSION

• gimp, xpaint --- GUI image messing-about
• convert, identify, etc. --- ImageMagick tools for command-based manipulation: see man ImageMagick for a complete list, and man convert etc. for full details of each command
  
• mencoder --- convert almost any audio/video file to something else / different compression
  
• kuickshow --- a nice picture viewer
  

WEB-BROWSERS ETC.

• links, lynx --- text-based browsers
  
• konqueror, mozilla --- GUI web-browsers
  
• wget --- very handy recursive downloader
  
• kget --- GUI interface to wget
  
• mail, pine, mutt --- text-based email clients ('mail' allows checking of system email and sending email as "user@host")
  
• kmail, evolution --- GUI email clients