From: Martin Weiser Newsgroups: sci.math.num-analysis,comp.soft-sys.matlab Subject: Re: Octave anyone? Date: 18 Mar 1998 11:01:44 +0100 sjt@cs.mun.ca (Stephen J. Tremblett) writes: > I am doing a numerical analysis course currently, and the students are > instructed to use MATLAB in Windows 3.1. Being a UNIX nut, I looked > around for something for Linux, and came upon GNU Octave. Does anyone > have experience with that package? I dloaded it and set it up, and it > appears to work fine with my previously written MATLAB code, but I was > just curious if anyone had any pointers as to what the differences > between Octave and MATLAB are. > > Thanks > > -- > -=> Steve Tremblett > -=> Memorial University Computer Science > -=> sjt@cs.mun.ca || v12sjt@plato.ucs.mun.ca Octave is a really good noncommercial alternative to Matlab, if you don't need - sophisticated Matlab-Style graphics - sparse matrices (!) - any of the Matlab toolboxes. See http://www.che.wisc.edu/octave/ for more detailed information. As far as I remember, there is also Matlab for Linux available. This may be an option if you have some money left... Hope this helps Martin -- Martin Weiser Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik Berlin weiser@zib.de Scientific Computing Numerische Analysis und Modellierung http://www.zib.de/weiser ============================================================================== From: jwe@bevo.che.wisc.edu (John W. Eaton) Newsgroups: sci.math.num-analysis,comp.soft-sys.matlab Subject: Re: Octave anyone? Date: 20 Mar 1998 00:41:40 -0600 Larry Busse writes: > Octave is a very good program that I've enjoyed using for a couple of > years now. Thanks, I'm glad Octave has been useful for you. > In addition to the differences that others have provided, > octave only supports vectors and matrices. Actually, it also supports structures (since version 1.1, which was released long before Matlab 5) and strings. It also provides a relatively convenient method for allowing users to define their own data types in dynamically linked modules. The next major release of Octave will definitely have support for a list data type and a file/stream data type. There is also a chance that sparse and multidimensional matrices will be supported. Perhaps also character and integer matrix data types. You can get an idea of the direction of the current development by checking out the sources at ftp://ftp.che.wisc.edu/pub/octave/bleeding-edge. > If you are going to need > arrays with 3 or more dimensions, you better stick to the latest version > of MATLAB. Or you could help to add these features to Octave either by providing code or funding (or both!). Because Octave is freely redistributable software that's available in source form, you don't have to rely on a single source for support. If there is a bug or a missing feature (or even just a misfeature :-) you can fix it yourself, find someone else to fix it for you, or (just as for most proprietary software used by individuals) you can submit a bug report and hope that your problem will eventually be fixed. For me, the fact that Octave is free software is one of its primary advantages over proprietary systems like Matlab. In addition to giving you more options for support, it also allows you to see exactly how any computation is performed because you have access to the complete source code for Octave. Oh, and another advantage is that it doesn't require a license manager to run. Thanks, jwe -- In the beginning, Ken Thompson | Octave: http://www.che.wisc.edu/octave wrote the searching tool grep. | Me: http://www.che.wisc.edu/~jwe -- A. Hume, SP&E (1988) |