giac for Debian --------------- Note that there is a "debianold" directory in upstream tree, different from this one [1]. "Giac" is separately packaged for Quantian, a mathematical oriented Knoppix-derivated distribution [2], under different conditions (e.g. Pari support requires a patch to Pari sources if NTL not installed, in that case copy rules.no.pari to rules to build, in case NTL is installed you can safely copy rules.pari to rules); Quantian's Giac is built by configuring a series of advanced options in libraries it depends on (this package will use these options when they are set by default in the corresponding Debian packages). The command line interface can be started by typing "giac" or "icas". Help is available thru the commands "aide", "cas_help", "en_cas_help", "fr_cas_help" and "es_cas_help" (choose language). "Giac" can be used as a C++ library. Just install "libgiac0-dev". The GUI command are "xcas" and "xcasnew". [1] The corresponding package can be found at ftp://ftp-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/xcas/ [2] Visit http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html