Hi there,
I am a physics student. I'm currently writing a report on some practical I did. This is the first time i'm seriosly using linux to do this. And I must say, it is hard to make a report like that with linux and I want to change that.
Well, what do you need to write a scientific report? (ps, if you don't want to read so much, go directly to "To make a long story short" )
First you need type setting software. What you need is a wysiwyg latex editor. I looked, there are none for linux. I know there is lyx and texmacs, but I don't like both of them because the use there own formats to save docments. You can export as latex, but that is'nt as flawless as you would like it to be. Maby you know "scientific word" under windows. I'm looking for somthing like that.
What else do you need?
You need data analyses and formating software. If I have some data, I want to be able to make all kinds of graphs with it. I go to admit there is lots of linux software that can do that. But what I also want is to do all kinds of statistical analyses on my data. And that what i'm missing. I'm seing some prommising developments like scigraphica, but it's not there yet. Right now i'm using origin. It's windows software, but i'm using it via winex.
You also need imaging software and a CAS (computer algebra software) but these exist in linux. Although I did have a lot of trouble making a decent image of my experimental setup. But I think that hase more to do with my scills.
There are two CAS'es I know which are good. That's maple and maxima. maple is commercial and expensive. Maxima is free.
It would be nice to have all these tools in one app.
To make a long story short
I want to develop somthing like an officesuite, but when for scientific porposes. It must incorerate a wysiwyg latex editor, data analyses and presentation software, a simple drawing app and mably a simple CAS.
Any body interested in helping me? I have allrady made something like a CAS, although at this point it's barly more then a calculator. You can get the source
here. But don't bite my head off because it's badly written. I'm improving it.