Software
(Please contact help@sns.ias.edu for any additional software requests).
The following list is not comprehensive. It comprises recommended software and any software added to the respective platforms. Software that is included by default in a given operating system (for example, Internet Explorer on Windows) is not mentioned.
All Linux software is accessible to Windows and Mac OS X users via secure shell or xterm.
Windows Remote Desktop is available to all Linux, Mac OS X and Windows desktop computers.
Some software is marked "optional". On Mac OS X 10.9 or later, you need to run /Applications/Self Service.app to install optional software. You may install many of the software available on the web provided that the software is able to run and be installed in your own home directory. You are also free to install all applications available in the Apple AppStore.
| Title | Description | Categories | Installed Platform(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| cocoAspell | cocoAspell is Mac OS X interface to Aspell | Office | macOS |
| VLC Media Player | VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols. | Internet | macOS |
| Dropbox | Dropbox is a cloud-based data storage service that makes file synchronization and sharing easy. IAS provides access to an Institute-managed Dropbox service for academic and organizational use to all faculty, scholars and staff on an opt-in basis. | Internet | Linux, macOS, Windows (by request) |
| Google Chrome | The Google Chrome web browser | Internet | macOS |
| Adobe Creative Cloud | Includes Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Acrobat, and Bridge | Office, Publishing, Internet, Image Manipulation, Drawing | Contact Computing Staff for access |
| Overleaf | Online LaTeX-based collaborative writing and publishing tool. | Publishing | Contact Computing Staff for access |
| Povray | A tool for creating 3D graphics | Visualization | Linux |
| PAW | Physics Analysis Workstation from CERN | Visualization | Linux |
| OpenDX | Open source visualization software package based on IBM's Visualization Data Explorer | Visualization | Linux |
| Matlab | MATLAB® is a high-level language and interactive environment that enables you to perform computationally intensive tasks faster than with traditional programming languages such as C, C++, and Fortran. | Mathematics, Visualization | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Base System Software | Each operating system includes its default software packages. | Linux, macOS, Windows, Windows Remote Desktop | |
| Python | Python is a general-purpose high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. | Programming Languages | Linux |
| Xcode | Xcode is a suite of tools for developing software on macOS, developed by Apple. | Compilers, Programming Languages | macOS |
| gnuplot | Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven graphing utility for linux, OS/2, MS Windows, OSX, VMS, and many other platforms. | Visualization | Linux |
| Subversion | An open-source revision control system, useful for solo or collaborative software development and paper editing. | Revision Control | Linux |
| GnuPG | Encryption for files and email, works well with Enigmail on Mozilla Thunderbird. | Privacy, Security | Linux |
| OpenOffice | Office, Publishing | Linux | |
| Microsoft Office | Microsoft Office is an office suite of interrelated desktop applications for the Microsoft Windows and macOS operating systems. | Office, Publishing | macOS, Windows |
| Keynote, Pages & Numbers | Apple's productivity apps | Office, Publishing | macOS |
| Mathematica | Mathematica is a computational software program used in scientific, engineering, and mathematical fields and other areas of technical computing. Faculty, members and staff can also request home use Mathematica licenses by contacting the SNS help desk. | Mathematics | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Xming | Xming is an implementation of the X Window System for Microsoft Windows operating systems. A xterm desktop icon will activate Xming. | Integration | Windows |
| WinEdt | WinEdt is a shareware ASCII editor and shell for Microsoft Windows. It is primarily used for the creation of TeX (or LaTeX) documents, but can also be used to edit HTML or any other type of text file. | Office, Publishing | Windows |
| Lyx | A document processor | Office, Publishing | macOS |
| SSH Secure Shell | Provides secure shell access to various devices, particularly Unix and Linux hosts, inside and outside IAS. | Integration, Privacy, Security | Windows |
| Skype | Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. | Internet, Communications | macOS, Windows |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | The email client we recommend. | Internet, Communications | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Mozilla Firefox | A web browser. | Internet | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Maple | Maple is a general-purpose commercial computer algebra system. | Mathematics | Linux, macOS (optional) |
| MikTeX | The TeX system for Windows. | Publishing | Windows |
| Java | Java is a general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented language that is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. Versions vary. | Compilers, Programming Languages | Linux, macOS, Windows |
| IrfanView | An all-purpose graphics viewer for Windows | Office, Visualization | Windows |
| ICS Viewer | Used for some grant applications. | Publishing | Windows |
| GSview | A graphical interface for ghostscript, usually used as a postscript file viewer. | Publishing, Visualization | Windows |
| Ghostscript | Converts and renders postscript. | Conversion, Publishing, Visualization | Linux, Windows |
| Adobe Reader | Displays PDF documents. | Office, Publishing | Linux, Windows |
| 7-zip | Open-source file archive compressor and decompressor for Windows. | Office, Conversion | Windows |
| MacTeX | The TeX system for macOS | Publishing | macOS |
| Singular | A computer algebra system for polynomial computations | Mathematical | Linux |
| xfig | An interactive vector figure generation tool. See adding LaTeX figures in xfig. | Drawing | Linux |
| dia | Useful for diagrams. | Drawing | Linux |
| IFRIT | 3-dimensional visualization tool | Astronomical, Visualization | Linux |
| IRAF | Image Reduction and Analysis Facility | Astronomical | Linux |
| HEAsoft | Ftools + Xanadu | Astronomical | Linux |
| Root | Object oriented data analysis framework | Astronomical | Linux |
| Supermongo | An interactive plotting package for drawing graphs | Astronomical, Publishing, Visualization | Linux |
| SAS | Reduce and analyze data collected by the XMM-Newton observatory | Astronomical | Linux |
| Astronomer's Proposal Tool (APT) | A complete and integrated system for Hubble Space Telescope (HST) proposal preparation | Astronomical | Linux |
| ds9 | Astronomical data vizualization | Astronomical, Visualization | Linux |
| gcc | The GNU compiler collection | Compilers | Linux |
| Intel Fortran Compiler | Includes Fortran 90 compiler | Compilers | Linux |
| ImageMagick | Reads, converts and writes images in a variety of formats | Conversion, Image Manipulation | Linux |
| netpbm-progs | Contains many scripts for converting from one graphics file format to another | Conversion, Image Manipulation | Linux |
| pdftex, pdflatex | Convert latex to PDF | Conversion, Publishing | Linux, MacOS |
| ps2pdf, pdf2ps | Convert between postscript and PDF | Conversion, Publishing, Image Manipulation | |
| CERNLIB | Libraries | Linux | |
| CFITSIO | Libraries | Linux | |
| FFTW | Libraries | Linux | |
| HDF | Libraries | Linux | |
| IDL Astronomy User's Library | Libraries | Linux | |
| LAPACK | Libraries | Linux | |
| NAG Libraries | Libraries | Linux | |
| Numerical Recipes | Libraries | Linux | |
| PGPLOT | Libraries | Linux | |
| Git | Git is a free & open source, distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. | Revision Control | Linux. macOS |
| Aquamacs | Emacs editor for the Mac | Publishing, Office | macOS |
| Papers 1 |
A reference manager. |
Publishing, Office | macOS (optional) |
| PAMIR | Multidimensional adaptive integration | Mathematics | Linux (Any IAS Member can download it to their PC from the PAMIR website) |
| GVim | Advanced text editor in Windows that provides the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi' | Windows | |
| SumatraPDF | PDF, eBook (ePub, Mobi), XPS, DjVu, CHM, Comic Book (CBZ and CBR) reader. | Publishing | Windows |
| Inkscape | An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. | Drawing | macOS |
| XQuartz | a component of the X Window System for macOS. Previously X11. | macOS | |
| Crashplan | automatic data backup and recovery | macOS | |