Live data from Hacker News

Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

wolfram.com

41–50 of 141 posts

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#41
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is more like a walled garden than Windows? Maybe you have a different definition of walled garden or something...

Linux quickly becomes a quagmire of impracticality once you dare to step outside of the distro-provided or -recommended repositories, so much I would argue it's functionally a walled garden at that point. By contrast, on Windows you can install, run, upgrade, and downgrade whatever you want whenever you want however you want without sacrificing practicality.

Take a look at LXC/LXD containers.

  lxd init # choose defaults except use "dir" for disk 
  lxc launch ubuntu:22.04 my-ubuntu # or any other distro
  lxc exec my-ubuntu -- bash
Clean, lightweight, full virtual machine every time that's much less heavy than Virtualbox. You can mess around in there as much as you want without creating the quagmire you speak of on your main installation, because it's a full, completely clean VM isolated away. Also lots of distros to choose from. Personally I find Windows to be super unstable once you've installed/uninstalled a bunch of stuff. Obviously, there's also Docker but sometimes you want a full VM to get a bunch of stuff working together.

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#42
post #35
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Linux is a "Walled garden" the phrase has no meaning.

What does it mean then that Windows is a walled garden? That it can only run Windows software? How is then Linux also not a walled garden?

Linux can run floss and Windows software too.

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#43
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is more like a walled garden than Windows? Maybe you have a different definition of walled garden or something...

Linux quickly becomes a quagmire of impracticality once you dare to step outside of the distro-provided or -recommended repositories, so much I would argue it's functionally a walled garden at that point. By contrast, on Windows you can install, run, upgrade, and downgrade whatever you want whenever you want however you want without sacrificing practicality.

This is among the most insane mind acrobatics that I have read in many years. Twisting meanings to make one of the biggest straight jackets among server and desktop OSes that I have ever encountered in my career sound like it's some kind of heaven of freedom is just outright disgusting. (edit: grammar)

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#45
post #42
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean then that Windows is a walled garden? That it can only run Windows software? How is then Linux also not a walled garden?

Linux can run floss and Windows software too.

And macOS can (legally) run Linux, Windows, Mac, and some iOS/iPadOS software. No OS beats it in this respect.

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#46
post #35
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Linux is a "Walled garden" the phrase has no meaning.

What does it mean then that Windows is a walled garden? That it can only run Windows software? How is then Linux also not a walled garden?

You don't have to pay anyone to sign a driver you write to use it yourself. With Windows you can write some software, but not all software. You have to pay Microsoft to sign drivers. The code that enforces that is the wall. No such code exists in a Linux. All is possible.

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#47
post #5

IIRC, this has been the case for a while. I seem to recall getting a Raspberry Pi ~5 years ago which had Mathematica on it. Admittedly it was quite slow, but as far as I can recall it did work.

The Raspberry Pi is how I got introduced to Mathematica in 2019. I actually it for Advent of Code that year, which was difficult and frustrating but a huge learning experience!

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#49
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is more like a walled garden than Windows? Maybe you have a different definition of walled garden or something...

Linux quickly becomes a quagmire of impracticality once you dare to step outside of the distro-provided or -recommended repositories, so much I would argue it's functionally a walled garden at that point. By contrast, on Windows you can install, run, upgrade, and downgrade whatever you want whenever you want however you want without sacrificing practicality.

I actually think you have a point.

Linux is far less of a walled garden in principle. And it seems a lot of people are assuming "walled garden" is a statement from developers perspective (no cost license or difficulty in developing for platform).

I think what you're saying though is that your choices and options are far easier and wider with windows as a regular user, than with Linux, and if so I see your point. I've been working with Unix at work happily for 25 years now, day in and out in the cli, yet I've always bounced trying Linux on desktop. It feels like a limited, difficult, thorny garden for most regular windows users :)

Re: Wolfram Language and Mathematica Free on Every Raspberry Pi

#50
post #39

They need to make Python first class. I’d immediately switch to Mathematica for everything data/statistics related.

You need it, not them. Python is the biggest threat to their vendor-lockin business model. Mathematica is so hard to use because they want you to invest sunk cost into learning the Wolfram Way.
Post reply on HN