Open source software

There are lots of software installed by default on each laboratory computer. Following are the few popular, free and open source software installed. Users can request to install a open source software in Linux lab; computer center will install it after proper verification.

Development Tools- Eclipse, Ruby, Gnu plot, Octave, Q-hull, Qgis, Python, Tcl/Tk, R, Net-beans, Scilab, FreeCAD, Geomview, CGAL, Grass, G95, Qt4/Qt5, gcc, java (sun/openjdk), gfortran
Editors and office tools- Scribus, Kile, Lyx, Emacs/Xemacs, Latex, Adobe Reader, Libra office, Vim, nano, gedit
Graphics and Multimedia- Gimp, Scribus, Kino, VLC, Blender, Flash player, Audacity
Internet Utilities- Thunderbird, VNC, Firefox, Google chrome, Konqueror
Other Utilities- Telnet, SSH, FTP

Few well known software and their description is given below.

ruby : Ruby is the interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming. It has many features to process text files and to do system management tasks (as in Perl). It is simple, straight-forward, and extensible.
gnuplot/Qtiplot: Gnuplot is a command-line driven, interactive function plotting program especially suited for scientific data representation. Gnuplot can be used to plot functions and data points in both two and three dimensions and in many different formats. Install gnuplot if you need a graphics package for scientific data representation.
Qhull: It is a general dimension convex hull program that reads a set of points from stdin, and outputs the smallest convex set that contains the points to stdout. It also generates Delaunay triangulations, Voronoi diagrams, furthest-site Voronoi diagrams, and halfspace intersections about a point.
qgis: Geographic Information System (GIS) manages, analyzes, and displays databases of geographic information. QGIS supports shape file viewing and editing, spatial data storage with PostgreSQL/PostGIS, projection on-the-fly, map composition, and a number of other features via a plugin interface. QGIS also supports display of various geo-referenced raster and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) formats including GeoTIFF, Arc/Info ASCII Grid, and USGS ASCII DEM.
tcl: The Tcl (Tool Command Language) provides a powerful platform for creating integration applications that tie together diverse applications, protocols, devices, and frameworks. When paired with the Tk toolkit, Tcl provides a fastest and powerful way to create cross-platform GUI applications. Tcl can also be used for a variety of web-related tasks and for creating powerful command languages for applications.
tk: When paired with the Tcl scripting language, Tk provides a fast and powerful way to create cross-platform GUI applications.
scribus: Scribus is an desktop open source page layout program with the aim of producing commercial grade output in PDF and Postscript, primarily, though not exclusively for Linux. While the goals of the program are for ease of use and simple easy to understand tools, Scribus offers support for professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, easy PDF creation, Encapsulated Postscript import/export and creation of color separations.
gimp: GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a powerful image composition and editing program, which can be extremely useful for creating logos and other graphics for webpages. GIMP has many of the tools and filters you would expect to find in similar commercial offerings, and some interesting extras as well. GIMP provides a large image manipulation toolbox, including channel operations and layers, effects, sub-pixel imaging and anti-aliasing, and conversions, all with multi-level undo.
kile, Lyx, texmaker: Kile is a user friendly (La)TeX editor.
Lyx is a modern approach to writing documents which breaks with the obsolete "typewriter paradigm" of most other document preparation system. The major innovation in LyX is WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean).
thunderbird: Mozilla Thunderbird is a standalone mail and newsgroup client with lots of free and open source add-ons.
emacs, xemacs: Emacs is a powerful, customizable, self-documenting, modeless text editor. Emacs contains special code editing features, a scripting language (elisp), and the capability to read mail, news, and more without leaving the editor.
grass: GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization. GRASS is currently used in academic and commercial settings around the world, as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies.
audacity: Audacity is a cross-platform multi-track audio editor. It allows you to record sounds directly or to import files in various formats. It features a few simple effects, all of the editing features you should need, and unlimited undo. The GUI was built with wxWidgets and the audio I/O supports PulseAudio, OSS and ALSA under Linux.
inkscape: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. It is therefore a very useful tool for web designers and as an interchange format for desktop publishing. Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more.
geany: Geany is a small and fast integrated development enviroment with basic features and few dependencies to other packages or Desktop Environments. Support for Many languages like C, Java, PHP, HTML, Python, Perl, Pascal.
Firefx, google chrome:
gwenview: An image viewer program.
vlc: VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
ipython
eclipse
canopy
blender
netbeans
g95
racket
vnc
libreoffice

Exploring following opensource software may help the scientific community.

FreeCAD/nanoCAD
Qucs: Integrated circuit simulator
Octopus: Real-space, real-time implementation of TDDFT
CompHEP: Automatic computations in High Energy Physics
Gerris Flow Solver: Tool for generic numerical simulations of flows
Octopus: Real-space, real-time implementation of TDDFT
ROOT: Solves the data analysis challenges of high-energy physics
Gerris Flow Solver: Tool for generic numerical simulations of flows
GRASS: Geographic Resources Analysis Support System
Quantum GIS: Create, visualise, query and analyse geospatial data
SAGA: Analysis of spatial data
uDig: Spatial data viewer/editor
Avogadro: Advanced molecular editor
PyMOL: OpenGL molecular graphics system written in Python
Gabedit: Graphical user interface to computational chemistry packages
GAMESS: General ab initio quantum chemistry package
MOSCITO: Performs molecular dynamics simulations of rigid and/or flexible molecules
MPQC: Computes the properties of molecules, ab initio
Open Babel: Converts and manipulates chemical data files
gretl: Regression, Econometric and Time-Series Library

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