What is the equivalent of MATLAB?

I am trying to install software similar to MATLAB. I can't go for MATLAB itself because of its huge download size. Is there an alternative application which is similar to MATLAB?

Solution 1:

Mathematical Packages For Ubuntu

all the following can be found in the software centre

Octave: Is a near clone of MATLAB using the same syntax for .m files. It does not include a Simulink Clone however.

Scilab: Is a similar matrix based mathematical to MATLAB but it does have its own syntax so is not directly compatible. It does however include scicos which though not identical is similar to Simulink: a block diagram modeller/simulator.

Spyder: is a powerful interactive development environment for the Python language with advanced editing, interactive testing, debugging and introspection features. This can be used for mathematical modelling.

Maxima: Is a computer algebra system similar to Mathcad, Maple and Mathematica.

Other free package which are not in the repositories

sage: is a free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. It combines the power of many existing open-source packages into a common Python-based interface. Mission: Creating a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab.

It can be installed as follows:

apt-add-repository -y ppa:aims/sagemath
apt-get update
apt-get install sagemath-upstream-binary

source here

Solution 2:

I assume you've tried Octave by now. The nice thing about Octave if that you don't need to download all the packages for it, and the base one is pretty lightweight. Octave is actually the closest thing to MATLAB you will find as well.

Solution 3:

I have found scilab and sage and I still welcome the suggestion because I havent use any of these or other up to now.

to get scilab in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install scilab

to get sage :http://linorg.usp.br/sage/linux/32bit/index.html