Orwell wrote:
I have several sources of free textbooks, such as Textbook Revolution, Open Culture, the Assayer, etc. I'm just wondering what to do for math software. I think I'll try out some of the free alternatives and see how they do. A friend of mine managed somehow to get Maple for free, so maybe she'll let me try it out long enough that I can compare it. And I believe there are computers somewhere on campus with Mathematica installed, so I'll try to find those as well.
It would help greatly if we knew
what fields of math you need to work in,
what methods you need to use, etc.
For example MATLAB/Octave doesn't handle symbols quite as well as a
bona fide CAS like Maxima; they're mostly for a lot of number crunching. On the other hand, many CAS lack some of these tools.
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"You can take me, but you cannot take my bunghole! For I have no bunghole! I am the Great Cornholio!"