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Re: Choosing between Mathematica for Windows and Linux

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg36740] Re: Choosing between Mathematica for Windows and Linux
• From: Hendrik van Hees <hees at physik.uni-bielefeld.de>
• Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 04:32:17 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <amh36l$9f8$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Sidney Cadot wrote:

> Hi group,
> 
> One of these days the company I work for will buy one Mathematica 4.2
> license. Now we will have to choose between either the Linux or the
> Windows versions of the product.

If in doubt take the Linux version, because Linux is the more stable sytem. 
The Redmond chaos code is IMHO no system at all (SCNR).

I have only one problem with my Mathematica 4.0 for students, which is that 
the Export function does not work for gif and other graphics formats. I 
have posted a question about this into this group but nobody has answered, 
so I guess there is no fix for that, but on the other hand 4.2 is much 
newer and should work.

> My main concern (and probably the grounds on which we will base our
> decision) is the quality of the front-end. The Windows frontend works
> flawlessly; however, in test-driving earlier versions of Mathematica (3.0
> and 4.0) on Linux, I found that the front-end was working a lot less
> satisfactorily. I didn't spend much time to hunt down the source of the
> problem, but it is probable that some X key-mapping was wrong making, for
> example, keyboard shortcuts for 'Copy' and 'Paste' malfunctioning. On the
> whole, I'd say the Linux front-end simply felt less robust than does the
> Windows frontend.

I have no problem concerning the frontend. One has only to adjust the font 
settings (if you need it, I can send you a pdf file explaining how).


-- 
Hendrik van Hees                        Fakultät für Physik 
Phone: +49 521/106-6221                 Universität Bielefeld 
Fax:   +49 521/106-2961                 Universitätsstraße 
http://theory.gsi.de/~vanhees/          D-33615 Bielefeld