A list of free applications to fulfill the basic needs of researchers and students that work with mathematics and statistics.
Stats and math
- R (Mac/Win/Linux) is a fully-featured statistical analysis and programming system
- gretl (Win/Linux/Mac with X11) (the Gnu Regression, Econometrics and Time-Series Library) is a session-based econometrics package that handles a variety of linear and nonlinear models, MLE and GMM estimation
- Octave (Win/Linux/Mac through Fink) “…is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations” (It’s a MATLAB clone)
- Scilab (Win/Linux/Mac with X11) is a numerical computation program, similar to MATLAB
- Freemat (Mac/Win) is a numerical processing system similar to Matlab
- Yacas (Mac, Windows/Linux) is a powerful computer algebra system
- Maxima (Win/Linux/Mac through Fink) is an open-source computer algebra system
- Gnuplot (Win/Linux/Mac through Fink) is a powerful open-source plotting utility
- Plot (Mac) is a scientific 2D plotting application
LaTeX
- gwTeX (Mac) is the standard open-source LaTeX distribution for the Mac, and can be installed using i-Installer, a graphical package management utility
- TeXShop (Mac) is a powerful yet simple LaTeX frontend
- BibDesk (Mac) is a graphical BibTeX database manager
- MikTeX (Win) is a popular, comprehensive LaTeX distribution for Windows
- TeXnicCenter (Win) is an open-source LaTeX frontend
- LyX (Linux/Mac/Win) A logically structured typesetting interface and a truly graphical frontend for LaTeX
- JabRef (Linux/Mac/Win, all through Java) is another BibTeX manager. It also lets you connect a file to each entry in a database, so you can centralize a literature that is dispersed throughout many files. JabRef also works with the bibliographic functions of OpenOffice Writer and Microsoft Word 2007
Other
- TextWrangler (Mac) is a feature-rich and extensible text editor
- Crimson Editor (Win) is a powerful text editor with syntax highlighting for SAS, R, Stata, etc.
- OpenOffice.org (Win, Linux, Mac) An open-source office suite with word-processing, presentation, spreadsheet, vector drawing and equation editing applications
- NeoOffice (Mac) OpenOffice.org for the Mac without the need for X11 (slower but more native)
- Inkscape (Win, Linux, Mac with X11) is an open-source vector drawing application that saves natively in the SVG format and exports to PDF and EPS. Useful for drawing technical illustrations
About Fink
Fink is a project that ports open-source Linux software to OS X. These applications generally run in Terminal.app or in an X11 client such as the one provided by Apple. After setup, new applications can be installed quickly through Fink Commander, a graphical package manager. Fink is a bit more advanced to use, but it puts a lot of powerful utilities at your command, so it might be worth trying out. If you find that you don’t like it, it’s also easy to uninstall.
