CSG Q&A on Linux

Department of Computing	Imperial College London
Q&A on Linux: applications and languages

How can I find out where commands/applications/files are?
My editor is annoying?
What debuggers are there?
What software is installed?
Can I print calendar pages?
Is there a package like PhotoShop installed?
Is there a package like Powerpoint installed?
Is there a package like Visio installed?
Do we have a way of viewing Word docs on Linux?
Do we have Acrobat Distiller?
Is Package X installed?
Is there a utility for drawing graphs?
Is Mathematica or Maple available?
Who do I do Version Control?
Is the NAG library installed?
The lab machines don't have mac2unix or unix2dos now?
Where is VTK, and can I get a copy?
Is there a Linux equivalent of MSN Messenger?
Is Concurrency Workbench installed?
Is Matlab installed?

How can I find out where commands/applications/files are?

For commands and applications there are three options:

which commandname
whereis commandname
locate commandname

The last of these can also be used to find system files. Another command which may be of use in looking for files is find. See the manual page for details.

My editor is annoying?

Try another one. Favourites of the CSG systems staff include vim, emacs, xemacs, pico and joe, but there are plenty more. Try man -k editor to find a few examples.

If you want emacs to let you delete a block by marking it and pressing delete or backspace (in a PC/Mac editor style), use xemacs, and set Options/Editing Options/Auto delete selection from the menu and then save the options.

What debuggers are there?

The Gnu debugger gdb, lclint, and the graphical debugger ddd.

What software is installed?

Nowadays, the vast majority of Linux lab machines should have the same software installed. Type dpkg -l for a package listing on your particular machine.

Can I print calendar pages?

Yes, just type:

cal | a2ps | lpr -Pprintername

This prints the current month. See the manual page for further options.

Is there a package like PhotoShop installed?

Try using the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), an open source clone of Photoshop.

There's a User manual and an introductory guide.

Do we have a way of viewing Word docs on Linux?

All systems should have Open Office installed (type ooffice to use it). That does a pretty good job (not perfect, page sizes are sometimes a little wrong).

(Updated Feb 2009)

Is Package X installed?

To check whether any particular package is installed, or in the Ubuntu repository available for installation (by us on request, not by you!) first find the name of the package by the following command line:

aptitude search KEYWORD

Then pick one of the specific packages reported by the search, and show all the meta-information about it (including whether or not it's currently installed):

aptitude show PACKAGENAME

Do we have Acrobat Distiller?

No, it would cost about £20 per workstation. See the printing Q&A for alternatives.

Is there a utility for drawing graphs?

What kind of graphs do you mean?

R: A system for statistical computation and graphics. R consists of a language plus a run-time environment with graphics, a debugger, access to certain system functions, and the ability to run programs stored in script files.
gnuplot: 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.
matlab: Matlab is the widely used engineering system for manipulating matrices etc, it has many 2D and 3D graph drawing capabilities.