Re: Any maths or science fans using Solaris? (related to Mathematica on Solaris)

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:14:11 +0100, Dave wrote:

I posted this on some OpenSolaris newsgroups, but since a lot of people
might not read them, I thought I'd stick it here too.


Some of you might know of the program 'Mathematica' from Wolfram
Research.

http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html

If you are interested in computing things like the factorial of 100000!
exactly using integers, or solving integrals etc, it might be of
interest. (It is very much a niche product).

Mathematica has been a very expensive bit of software which runs on
Windows, OS X, Linux, Solaris (both SPARC and x86). The Windows, Linux
and OS X versions are $2495 in the USA, (£2035 in the UK) The Solaris
versions are even more expensive than the other systems ($3120 in the
USA, £2545 in the UK).

Anyway, Wolfram Research have just released a 'home' version of
Mathematica

http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematicahomeedition/

which retails at $295 in the US and £195 in the UK, which is around 10%
of the usual cost. It's supposed to be the same product - just the
license conditions don't allow professional use. There is an even
cheaper version available for students, but they have to be registered
at a uni or similar.

The problem is, the 'home' edition is not available on Solaris (either
SPARC or x86), but only on Windows, Linux or OS X. The same is true of
the student versions.

Now I know there are lots of people running Solaris at home, and some of
you which might be interested in a cheapish copy of Mathematica.

If so, I suggest you ask Wolfram Research to make a copy available for
Solaris. If enough people badger them, they might do it.

When at uni, the site license we had allowed Mathematica to be at home
by staff. When I asked for a SPARC license, this was initially declined,
since "A Sun is not a home computer". After pointing out that people did
use Suns at homes, Wolfram Research granted me a license for my SPARC at
home.

You can badger Wolfram Research at
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/sales.cgi

Or http://www.wolfram.com/company/contact.cgi shows some possibly useful
email addresses.

General Inquiries
Send general questions regarding Wolfram Research and our products to
info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Suggestions
Suggestions about our products are welcome at suggestions@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Obviously for companies to port products to Solaris, it takes some
effort. But when the program already runs on Solaris, it seems crazy for
them to not make it available for Solaris users.

PS
The Solaris x86 version of Mathematica is only supported on AMD, not
Intel CPUs, but it is possible to get around this, by replacing a couple
of the libraries supplied with Mathematica with Sun versions which come
as part of Sun Studio 12. But as I say, you can't get the x86 or SPARC
versions for home or student use.

Have you looked at the OpenSource project Octave ?
--
Ray
.

Relevant Pages

  • Any maths or science fans using Solaris? (related to Mathematica on Solaris)
    ... Mathematica has been a very expensive bit of software which runs on Windows, OS X, Linux, Solaris (both SPARC and x86). ... Wolfram Research have just released a 'home' version of Mathematica ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: What commercial engineering software exists?
    ... Solaris, and wanted to give a few examples of commercial engineering ... I know of Matlab and Labview (both only on SPARC not x86). ... Mathematica ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Mathematica front end - needs just a browser.
    ... I know from recentdiscussions on here about the Solaris 10 bug which is screwing up Mathematica, that quite a few run Mathematica on Solaris, so perhaps the start is not too bad either. ... WITM needs Mathematica and a web server running on a UNIX/Linux platform, but allows access from anything with a browser. ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: Cheap Mathematica
    ... Is Mathematica Home Edition for anyone using Mathematica at home? ... Now Mathematica Home Edition provides an inexpensive version of Mathematica for those who want to use its powerful technology to explore their ideas. ... When I asked Wolfram for a Solaris license to use on a Sun workstation, I was first told "A Sun is not a home computer". ...
    (sci.math.symbolic)
  • Re: Build Dual Xeon or buy low-end Pentium??
    ... a bit quicker than your old one, would you build something around them, or just buy a new PC? ... I tend to use Solaris on SPARC hardware 99% of the time here, but unfortunately one program I do run sometimes (Mathematica) runs on Solaris only on a 64-bit CPU, but not a 32-bit one. ...
    (alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt)
Loading