Computing
We generally use unix (Ubuntu flavor). Microsoft, however, is so ubiquitous that we also have machines running XP.
Statistics
We use
R for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on Microsoft and unix machines - and Macs too.
Cygwin Hacks
You may find these hacks useful if you use Cygwin. Let us know if they work for you.
Active State perl with cygwin
If you prefer to use Active State perl instead of the cygwin perl package then you have
the problem of being unable to run perl scripts from the shabang.
To get round this, put this script - call it
perl - in the /usr/bin directory of cygwin.
The script points to your Active State perl executable C:\perl\bin\perl.exe.
(Change it to suit your own path - if different.)
You are now able to run perl scripts (with no extension to their filenames) from the perl shabang line
#!/usr/bin/perl. Check out this example .bashrc file.
Obviously, your configuration may be different.
Running MikTeX2.6 from cygwin
Care must be taken if you decide to run MikTeX2.6 (or MikTeX2.5) from a cygwin bash or xterm.
By default, MikTeX2.6 installs into a directory whose name contains a space!
Of course, cygwin does not like spaces in file or directory names.
To get round this, change your MikTeX2.6 installation directory from its default
position to a new position of C:\miktex2.6.
Then put the MikTeX executables into your cygwin path - again
check this example .bashrc file.
This issue does not occur with the older 2.4 version of MikTeX.
Calling latexmk from cygwin
The MikTeX distribution contains a miktexmk executable in its
bin directory.
MikTeX also contains a miktex.pl perl script in
path_to_miktex2.6\scripts\perl.
Put this alias
mklatex='/usr/local/bin/latexmk.pl' in your
.bashrc file.
You will now be able to run latexmk in a bash shell by typing “mklatex” or in a dos command-box by typing
“latexmk”.
