<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/styles/edd.blog.css"> <title>Quantian</title> <base href="http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/"> </head> <body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" border="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" class="main"> <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" summary=""> <tr><td colspan="7" class="ruler" height="1"></td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="1" class="header"></td> <td colspan="1" height="22" class="header"> <nobr> <a href="/">Dirk Eddelbuettel</a> </nobr> </td> <td colspan="3" height="22" class="header"></td> <td colspan="1" height="22" class="headertitle"> Quantian </td> <td colspan="1" class="header"></td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="7" class="ruler" height="1"></td></tr> <tr valign="top"> <td class="navbar"><nobr> </nobr> <td class="navbar"> <div class="navbar" height="5"><img src="/images/trans.gif" height="5" alt=""></div> <a href="/bio.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'Bio'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'Bio'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">Bio</a><br><a href="/code.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'Code'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'Code'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">Code</a><br><a href="/linux.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'Linux'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'Linux'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">Linux</a><br>Quantian <br> <a href="/quantian/changelog.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'changelog'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'changelog'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">ChangeLog</a><br> <a href="/quantian/todo.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'todo'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'todo'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">TODO</a><br> <a href="/quantian/bugs.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'bugs'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'bugs'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">Bugs</a><br> <a href="/quantian/howto.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'howtos'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'howtos'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">HOWTOs</a> <br><a href="/about.html" onmouseover="self.status = 'About'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'About'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">About</a><br><a href="/blog/" onmouseover="self.status = 'Blog'; return true" onmouseout="self.status = ''; return true" onfocus="self.status = 'Blog'; return true" onblur="self.status = ''; return true">Blog</a><br></td> <td class="navbar"><nobr>  </nobr></td> <td class="ruler" width="1"><img src="/images/trans.gif" width="1" alt=""></td> <td class="story"><nobr>  </nobr></td> <td valign="top" class="story" width="100%"> <div class="story" height="5"><img src="/images/trans.gif" height="5" alt=""></div> <div align="justify"> <h3>The <em>Quantian Scientific Computing Environment</em></h3> <p> A Knoppix / Debian variant tailored to numerical and quantitative analysis. <p> <b>Executive Summary:</b> <i> The most recent version is 0.6.9.3 --- the third Quantian version based on Knoppix 3.6, and clusterKnoppix v3.6-2004-08-16 with the openMosix-enabled 2.4.27. The <a href="/quantian/quantian_0.6.9.3.quantian.txt">packages list ordered by size</a> and the <a href="/quantian/quantian_0.6.9.3.quantian.packages.txt">detailed packages list</a> provide details about the included programs, see the <a href="/quantian/changelog.html">changelog</a> for a detailed summary of all the changes.      Download informations are provided below. Also see the <a href="/blog/computers/linux/debian/quantix/index.html">Quantian blog page</a>, the <a href="/quantian/changelog.html">changelog</a>, the <a href="/quantian/todo.html">todo</a> and <a href="/quantian/bugs.html">bugs</a> pages, and well as the set of short <a href="/quantian/howto.html">howtos </a> for detailed information.</i> <h4>What is Quantian?</h4> Quantian is a remastering of <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html">Knoppix</a>, the self-configuring and directly bootable cdrom/dvd that turns any pc or laptop (provided it can boot from cdrom/dvd) into a full-featured Linux workstation. Recent versions of Quantian are based on <a href="http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/"> clusterKnoppix</a> and add support for <a href="http://www.openmosix.org">openMosix</a>, including remote booting of light clients in an openMosix terminal server context. Earlier releases are still available; see below for URLs for downloads as well as ordering information. <p> Brief introductory information is available in a <a href="papers/quantian-tpm.pdf">paper (from June 2004) submitted to <i>The Political Methodologist</i></a>, <a href="papers/quantian_usenix2004_slides.pdf">slides from the presentation at Usenix 2004</a> (July 2004), and in the earlier <a href="papers/quantian_dsc2003.pdf">(revised) paper about Quantian</a> that has appeared in the <a href="http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/Conferences/DSC-2003/">DSC 2003</a> Proceedings. <p> Quantian is an extension of <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html">Knoppix</a> and <a href="http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/"> clusterKnoppix</a> from which it takes its base system of around two gigabytes of software, along with fully automatic hardware detection and configuration. <h4>What does Quantian contain?</h4> However, Quantian differs from Knoppix by adding a large number of programs of interest to applied or theoretical workers in quantitative or data-driven fields. The added quantitative, numerical or scientific programs comprise <ul> <li><a href="http://www.r-project.org">R</a>, including <em>essentially all packages from CRAN</em> (excluding only non-Unix packages such as MimR, or ROracle which needs special headers and libraries; the CRAN snapshot was taken Nov 27, 2004) as well as some from other R package repositories, out-of-the box support for the powerful <a href="http://ess.r-project.org">ESS</a> modes for <a href="http://www.xemacs.org/">XEmacs</a> as well as the <a href="http://www.ggobi.org/">Ggobi visualisation program</a>; <li>bioinformatics tools such <em>all packages from the <a href="http://www.bioconductor.org/">BioConductor project</a></em>, as well as <a href="http://bioperl.org/">bioperl</a>, <a href="http://www.biopython.org">biopython</a> and applications such as <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/">blast2</a>, <a href="http://www.ebi.ac.uk/clustalw/">clustalw</a>, <a href="http://www.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk/Software/EMBOSS/">emboss</a> and <a href="http://hmmer.wustl.edu/">hmmer</a>; <li><a href="http://www.octave.org/">Octave</a>, with add-on packages <a href="http://octave.sourceforge.net/">octave-forge</a>, <a href="http://packages.debian.org/stable/math/octave-sp">octave-sp</a>, <a href="http://packages.debian.org/stable/math/octave-epstk">octave-epstk</a>, <a href="http://lnc.usc.edu/%7Eholt/matwrap/">matwrap</a> and <a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/Inline-Octave/"> Inline::Octave</a> as well as other matrix language environments; <li>Computer-algebra systems <a href="http://maxima.sf.net">Maxima</a> (including the X11 front-end and emacs support), <a href="http://www.parigp-home.de">Pari/GP</a>, <a href="http://www-gap.dsc.st-and.ac.uk/~gap">GAP</a>, <a href="http://www.ginac.de">GiNaC</a>, <a href="http://yacas.sf.net">YaCaS</a>, and <a href="http://www.nongnu.org/axiom">Axiom</a>; <li><a href="http://sources.redhat.com/gsl">GSL</a>, the Gnu Scientific Library (GSL) including example binaries; <li>the <a href="http://www.quantlib.org">QuantLib</a> quantitative finance library including its Python interface; <li>the <a href="http://grass.itc.it">Grass</a> geographic information system; <li>the <a href="http://www.opendx.org">OpenDX</a> and <a href="http://mayavi.sf.net">Mayavi</a> data visualisation systems; <li><a href="http://www.texmacs.org">TeXmacs</a> for wysiwyg scientific editing as well as <a href="http://www.lyx.org/">LyX</a> and <a href="http://kile.sourceforge.net/">kile</a> for wysiwyg (La)TeX editing; <li>various <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a> modules including <a href="http://www.scipy.org/">Scientific and Numeric Python</a>; <li><a href="http://wwwasd.web.cern.ch/wwwasd/cernlib/">Cernlib</a>, a large number of programs and libraries from the <a href="http://cern.ch/">CERN</a> particle physic lab; <li>the <a href="http://bochs.sourceforge.net/">bochs</a>, <a href="http://www.winehq.com/">wine</a> and <a href="http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/">qemu</a> emulators; <li>office suites such as <a href="http://www.openoffice.org">OpenOffice.org</a> and <a href="http://www.koffice.org">KOffice</a>; <li>and various other programs such as <a href="http://www.halcyon.com/ipscone/apcalc/overview.html">apcalc</a>, <a href="http://www.aplusdev.org/">aplus</a>, <a href="http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/%7Eforster/sw/aribas.html">aribas</a>, <a href="http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/ic/projects/bayes-group/autoclass/">autoclass</a>, <a href="http://www.ofset.org/drgeo/">DrGeo</a>, <a href="http://euler.sourceforge.net/">euler</a>, <a href="http://www.susqu.edu/facstaff/b/brakke/evolver/">evolver</a>, <a href="http://www.ann.jussieu.fr/%7Ehecht/freefem++.htm">freefem</a>, <a href="http://www.dsm.fordham.edu/%7Eftnchek/"> ftnchek</a>, <a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/math/gambit-doc">gambit</a>, <a href="http://www.infolaunch.com/%7Edaveb/">geg</a>, <a href="http://www.geomview.org/">geomview</a>, <a href="http://www.uku.fi/%7Ethassine/ghemical/">ghemical</a>, <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/glpk.html">glpk</a>, <a href="http://www.gnuplot.info/">gnuplot</a>, <a href="http://gperiodic.seul.org/">gperiodic</a>, <a href="http://gri.sourceforge.net/">gri</a>, <a href="http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/">gmt</a>, <a href="http://gretl.sourceforge.net/">gretl</a>, <a href="http://www.imagemagick.org/">ImageMagick</a>, <a href="http://ipe.compgeom.org/">IPE</a>, <a href="http://www.lam-mpi.org/">lam</a>, <a href="http://packages.debian.org/stable/math/lp-solve">lp-solve</a>, <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/mcl.html">mcl</a>, <a href="http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/mpi/mpich/">mpich</a>, <a href="http://aros.ca.sandia.gov/%7Ecljanss/mpqc/">mpqc</a>, <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/math/multimix">multimix</a>, <a href="http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/">rasmol</a>, <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/plotutils/">plotutils</a>, <a href="http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/CCST/research/reports_pre1998/comp_bio/stalk/pgapack.html">pgapack</a>, <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/">pspp</a>, <a href="http://pdl.perl.org/">pdl</a>, <a href="http://rcalc.sourceforge.net/">rcalc</a>, <a href="http://www.scilab.org/">scilab</a>, <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/">SQLite</a>, <a href="http://www.mkssoftware.com/docs/man1/tclsh.1.asp">Tclsh</a>, <a href="ftp://ftp-icf.llnl.gov/pub/Yorick/doc/index.html">yorick</a>, <a href="http://xaos.theory.org/">xaos</a>, <a href="http://www.stat.uiowa.edu/%7Eluke/xls/xlsinfo/xlsinfo.html">XLisp-Stat</a>, and <a href="http://www.math.pitt.edu/%7Ebard/xpp/whatis.html">xppaut</a>; </ul> <p> At the same time, all the distinguishing features that set Knoppix apart are retained in Quantian: <ul> <li>Auto-configuration of graphics, sound, disks, networking, auxiliary devices which is second to none among computer installations <li>The current (3.2.3) version of the <a href="http://www.kde.org/">KDE desktop environment</a> <li>The GNU compiler suite comprising <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/">gcc, g77, g++</a> compilers in releases 2.95 and 3.3 which includes gcj in version 3.3 <li><a href="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</a> and <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a> with loads of add-ons, plus other languages such <a href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/">ruby</a>, <a href="http://www.tcl.tk/">tcl</a>, <a href="http://www.lua.org/">Lua</a>... <li>The <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html">Emacs</a> and <a href="http://www.vim.org/">Vim</a> editors, as well as <a href="http://kate.kde.org/">kate</a>, <a href="http://www.jedsoft.org/jed/">jed</a>, <a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/joe/">joe</a>, <a href="http://www.nedit.org/">nedit</a> and <a href="http://zile.sourceforge.net/">zile</a> <li><a href="http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/">Gnumeric</a>, <a href="http://www.koffice.org/">Koffice</a>, ... office tools, with <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">OpenOffice.org</a> added back in <li>A Swiss-army knife collection of networking tools allowing access to wired and wireless lans, covering ethernet, isdn or dial-up modems <li>And still in Quantian though no longer in Knoppix: a complete <a href="http://www.tug.org/teTeX/">teTeX</a> TeX / <a href="http://www.latex-project.org/">LaTeX</a> setup for scientific publishing along with wysiwyg frontends such as <a href="http://kile.sourceforge.net/">kile</a>, the preview mode for emacs editors, several additonal bibtex tools, and other goodies such as <a href="http://prosper.sourceforge.net/">prosper</a> and <a href="http://sarovar.org/projects/pdfscreen/">pdfscreen</a> for presentations. </ul> <p> Last but not least, and thanks to <a href="http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix/"> clusterKnoppix</a>, quantian allows to build openMosix clusters in a matter of minutes -- and to immediately use them thanks to the well over 1gb of added scientific software.         <p> <h4>Screenshots</h4> You can click on any of the images to see a full-size chart. The first screenshot shows version 0.3 with <a href="http://www.openmosix.org">openMosix</a> running on a cluster with two computers, an <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">R</a> session (run from with <a href="http://www.xemacs.org/">XEmacs</a> using the <a href="http://ess.r-project.org">ESS mode</a>) with lattice graphics, the <a href="http://www.quantlib.org/">QuantLib</a> demo 'BermudanSwaption' as well as <a href="http://www.texmacs.org/">TeXmacs</a> -- and the Knoppix 3.2 heritage is clearly visible on the background.<br> <div align="center"> <a href="/quantian/quantian.jpeg"><img src="/quantian/quantian_halfsize.jpeg" border="1" alt="(screenshot of quantian_0.3: openMosix, R with lattice graphisc from XEmacs, QuantLib, TeXmacs"></a> </div> <p> The second screenshot shows Quantian version 0.4.9.3 with an openmosixview display of a three-node / four-cpu cluster as well as the <a href="http://kile.sourceforge.net/">kile</a> LaTeX frontend -- and the Knoppix 3.3 background image. <div align="center"> <a href="/quantian/quantian_0.4.9.2.jpeg"><img src="/quantian/quantian_0.4.9.2-halfsize.jpeg" border="1" alt="(screenshot of quantian_0.4.9.2: openmosixview, kile, knoppix 3.3"></a> </div> <p> The third screenshot shows Quantian 0.5.9.2 with its new custom background which was contributed by Ed Pegg, Jr. Also shown are an R session running in an XEmacs buffer controlled by ESS. The R session displays a demo from Rmetrisc which displays the sensitivities of financial options to various parameters--the so-called 'greeks'--in a 3x2 display. Also shown is openMosixview. <div align="center"> <a href="/quantian/quantian_0.5.9.2.jpeg"><img src="/quantian/quantian_0.5.9.2-halfsize.jpeg" border="1" alt="(screenshot of quantian_0.5.9.2: XEmacs/ESS, R, Rmetrics, custom background"></a> </div> <p> <p> <h4>Mailing lists</h4> Two mailing lists exist for Quantian, courtesy of <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a>'s <a href="http://alioth.debian.org">Alioth</a> host: <ul> <li><a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/quantian-announce"> quantian-announce</a> for announcements only, very low volume <li><a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/quantian-general"> quantian-general</a> for general discussions about Quantian </ul> <p> <h4>Downloads</h4> Current as well as prior versions of Quantian are available from two primary sites: on the West Coast at the <a href="http://www.analytics.washington.edu/downloads/quantian"> University of Washington</a>, and on the East Coast at <a href="http://research.warnes.net/downloads/quantian/CURRENT/">Greg Warnes' machine at Yale</a>. The most current versions are also on <a href="http://quantian.alioth.debian.org/">Debian's Alioth site</a>. <p> U of Washington has both a <a href="http://www.analytics.washington.edu:6969/">bittorrent seeder and tracker</a>, as well as access via rsync: Use <code>rsync www.analytics.washington.edu::quantian</code> to get the respective file listings, and use, e.g. <code>rsync www.analytics.washington.edu::quantian/README.txt .</code> to download the README.txt file. Substitute accordingly to get the .iso or .md5sum files. <p> European mirrors site are available in <a href="http://sunsite.rediris.es/mirror/quantian">Madrid, Spain</a> at RedIRIS (also with <a href="ftp://sunsite.rediris.es/mirror/quantian">ftp access</a>) and <a href="http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/ftp/pub/Linux/quantian/">Aachen, Germany</a> at RWTH (also with <a href="ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/quantian/">ftp access</a>). <p>          Quantian dvds and cdrom are available pre-made with worldwide shipping support from <a href="http://www.budgetlinuxcds.com/index.php?page=Choose&letter=Q&sort=upd"> BudgetLinuxCDs.com</a> with prices of $7.50 for the dvd and $2.50 for the cdrom. The dvds are also available from <a href="http://cart.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/0070011119.html">CheapBytes.com </a> for $11.99. Older Quantian cdroms are available pre-made from <a href="http://ulnx.com/product_info.php?cPath=134&products_id=174&osCsid=0ccdfd30c62bca8b756a37a0632efbf2"> ulnx.com</a> for $2.29 plus shipping. Quantian cdroms are also available pre-made from <a href="http://cart.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/0070011023.html"> cheapbytes.com</a> for $4.99 plus shipping, as were earlier versions. In Australia, <a href="http://www.lankum.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=232"> lankum.com</a> offers Quantian cdroms for A$5.5. In Germany, <a href="http://www.bsdiso.de/">BSDISO</a> offers Quantian cdroms premade for EUR 3.95 plus EUR 2 for shipping. <p> <p> <h4>Comments</h4> Please send comments, suggestions to the <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/quantian-general"> quantian-general</a> list. If your browser and mailer are configured correctly, then <a href="mailto:quantian-general@lists.alioth.debian.org">this link</a> will open a new post. </div> <p align="right" class="timestamp">  Last modified: Wed Dec 15 06:45:57 CST 2004  </p> </td> <td class="story"><nobr>   </nobr></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="7" class="ruler" height="1"></td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>