The crux of the issue is money. Depending on the resources at your university you may or may not have access to some awesome engineering software (AutoDesk Inventor, Matlab, Mathematica etc.). Some universities offer them for free to their students, in which case you do not need to worry about setting up any other operating system than Windows. However, if that is not the case, or if you only have access to that software in the university computer labs you might consider Linux.
The awesomeness of Linux is the sheer number of free software programs that you can download and install. For example, if you need Matlab to work on your homework, but you don’t want to do it in the university labs, you can always install Octave, which is almost an exact duplicate of Matlab. The upside is, it’s free!
Other than that, there are numerous CAD, FEM and mathematical modelling programs out there which are very powerful, free and smaller in size than their Windows-only counterparts.
Knowing how most students are on a very limited budget, this is a great alternative in order to get work done and not depend on university resources to do it.
You can find the distributions of Linux that I have used or am using on the Software page, along with some of the programs that I currently use for my study and research. My recommendation for beginners are Ubuntu, LinuxMint or CAELinux.
Related articles
- Getting started with Linux (fosscrunch.wordpress.com)
- Linux, one month in (readmystuff.wordpress.com)
Filed under: Engineering School, Linux, Software Tagged: Engineering Software, Linux, LinuxMint, Ubuntu
