AMPL
AMPL is a computer language for describing production, distribution, blending, scheduling and many other kinds of problems known generally as large-scale optimization or mathematical programming. A student version can be downloaded from the AMPL website.
Maple
Graduate students can purchase a copy of Maple for home use from the Computing Help Information Place (CHIP) in Mathematics & Computer Building (MC) 1052.
MATLAB
MATLAB can be downloaded from the MathWorks web site. Graduate students must have their supervisor or department purchase an annual license to use MATLAB for research.
R
R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. Download from the R project.
RStudio
RStudio is an interactive development environment for R. It can be run in two different ways: RStudio Desktop and RStudio Server.
RStudio Desktop is the simpler of the two. We recommend you use it instead of Server.
- Linux: ssh to any of the linux.math servers and run the command rstudio
- Mac: use the locally installed RStudio activity, or launch the XQuartz activity to start an X11 service and an xterm window, then in that xterm window ssh -X to any of the linux.math servers and run the command rstudio
- Windows: use the locally installed RStudio activity, or launch an X11 emulator such as Putty with Xing to connect to a linux.math server and run the command rstudio
RStudio Server runs in a web browser. Point your browser at port 8787 on any of the servers in the linux.math group. You need to specify a particular server, not "linux.math". For example http://cpu125.math.uwaterloo.ca:8787
A list of servers is available.
Special instructions are needed for using loon in RStudio Server. It works fine in RStudio Desktop without any special steps.
Sage
A free open-source mathematics software system. Its mission is to "create a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab." Download from the Sage home page.
Stata
A general purpose statistical software package. Stata can do data management, statistical analysis, graphics, simulations, and custom programming.