7 of the Best Free Linux Calculators

An anonymous reader writes "One of the basic utilities supplied with any operating system is a desktop calculator. These are often simple utilities that are perfectly adequate for basic use. They typically include trigonometric functions, logarithms, factorials, parentheses and a memory function. However, the calculators featured in this article are significantly more sophisticated with the ability to process difficult mathematical functions, to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, and much more. Occasionally, the calculator tool provided with an operating system did not engender any confidence. The classic example being the calculator shipped with Windows 3.1 which could not even reliably subtract two numbers. Rest assured, the calculators listed below are of precision quality."

Comments

Useless.

[SanityInAnarchy]

No maxima? How about kmplot?

Re:Useless.

[xororand]

One of the mentioned calculators has a pretty usable CLI though: "Qalculate!" - a great calculator for dealing with units, especially currencies.

Example:

> sphere(2 furlong) * (1.293 g/m^3) to kilogram
approx. 352739.273 kg

Missing

[bcmm]

$ dc

Where's DC/BC?

[Bananatree3]

DC or BC are more than adequate, are already in 99% of the distros out there and are chock full of features!

I use bc and like better than any GUI

[ls671]

I use bc and I like better than any GUI based calculator. Compiled with readline functionality, it just rocks in my humble opinion:

~$ bc
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
scale=5
(2*80/3.333)^3
110625.18091
((2*80/3.333)^3)/21
5267.86575

man bc for details

Emacs Calc

[macshit]

Emacs Calc, i.e. "M-x calc" in Emacs is by far the best calculator I've ever seen.

Here's the blurb from the manual:

"Calc" is an advanced calculator and mathematical tool that runs as part of the GNU Emacs environment. Very roughly based on the HP-28/48 series of calculators, its many features include:

• Choice of algebraic or RPN (stack-based) entry of calculations.
• Arbitrary precision integers and floating-point numbers.
• Arithmetic on rational numbers, complex numbers (rectangular and polar), error forms with standard deviations, open and closed intervals, vectors and matrices, dates and times, infinities, sets, quantities with units, and algebraic formulas.
• Mathematical operations such as logarithms and trigonometric functions.
• Programmer's features (bitwise operations, non-decimal numbers).
• Financial functions such as future value and internal rate of return.
• Number theoretical features such as prime factorization and arithmetic modulo M for any M.
• Algebraic manipulation features, including symbolic calculus.
• Moving data to and from regular editing buffers.
• Embedded mode for manipulating Calc formulas and data directly inside any editing buffer.
• Graphics using GNUPLOT, a versatile (and free) plotting program.
• Easy programming using keyboard macros, algebraic formulas, algebraic rewrite rules, or extended Emacs Lisp.

That list gives you a bit of an idea, but doesn't really capture how just darn cool Calc is; it just seems to do everything.... (The things I particularly value are the vector/matrix operations and the symbolic manipulation operators.)

It's (default) model is HP-style RPN, except of course with a much larger visible stack, and multi-level undo.

[You have to be careful tho because recent releases of Emacs come with two calculators -- a "simple" one, which you get with "M-x calculator", and the super incredible one you get with "M-x calc"... (yes it's kind of silly, but as usual with Emacs, there are historical reasons...]

Re:Emacs Calc

[kinthalas]

<'log(500!)>

Computation got stuck or ran too long.  Type `M' to increase the limit

<M>

max-lisp-eval-depth is now 2000

<'log(500!)>

2611.33045846

SpeedCrunch

[Cow Jones]

I've really come to like the SpeedCrunch calculator, which is available as a Debian package, and (according to their website) also runs on Windows and Mac. It's probably not inteded for scientific calculations, and it can't display graphs, but it has a very simple interface ideal for quick calculations. The tooltip with the current result of unfinished expressions is a nice touch, as is the history of past calculations (session).

CJ

Re:RPN Better than algebraic?

[jdb2]

Could someone give an example of a problem where RPN uses fewer strokes than an algebraic order calculator (including what strokes are needed on the RPN)?

One big example is continued fractions. For example : 2 INV 2 + INV 2 + INV 2 + INV 2 +...... approximates the square root of 2.

The algebraic method would involve this unweidly and ugly expression : 1 + 1/(2+1/(2+1/(2+1/(2+1/(......)))))

jdb2

Re:RPN Better than algebraic?

[adonoman]

Any time where the order of operations that you want doesn't coincide with the "natural" algebraic order:

Algebraic: (2 + 4) * (5 + 6)
11 keystrokes

RPN: 2 4 + 5 6 + *
7 keystrokes