Math software [Was: Re: Word processing]

[John Oliver]

Serge Rey wrote:
> 
> And while this may be a bit OT, I know of a number of instances where La/TeX has
> played a major role in leading people to Linux. I'm speaking about my experiences
> in academia where folks having anything to do with math  and are working in ms
> land soon tire of the limited tools available. The typical transition is to get
> MikTex and start exploring that, but sooner or later through this exploration
> they come across the nicer suite of tools available for such work under linux
> (both typesetting and programming).

What sort of math stuff can LaTeX do?  I'm curious, because one of the
reasons the engineers here run Windows is for the Windows apps, like
Matlab, Mathcad, PSpice, and similar stuff.  PADS is ported to NT, so
they're going to try to migrate that away from the HPs.  It would be
neat to be able to present free alternatives... :-)  A couple of guys
are always bugging me about getting these apps installed at home, and
one is a Linux experimenter.  If I could tell him Linux equivalents of
the apps they use here, some of them would start to use them.  And if
they're better, they'll start to ask for Linux here, rather than the
expensive Windows stuff... :-)