298 lines
5.7 KiB
HTML
298 lines
5.7 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Introduction</TITLE
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><META
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK
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REL="HOME"
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TITLE="Scientific Computing with Free software on GNU/Linux HOWTO "
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HREF="index.html"><LINK
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TITLE="Preamble"
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HREF="preamble.html"><LINK
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REL="NEXT"
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TITLE="Code Development Tools"
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HREF="devtools.html"></HEAD
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><TR
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><TH
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>Scientific Computing with Free software on GNU/Linux HOWTO</TH
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="10%"
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ALIGN="left"
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><A
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>Prev</A
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><TD
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>Next</A
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="100%"></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect1"
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><H1
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CLASS="sect1"
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><A
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NAME="intro"
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></A
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>2. Introduction</H1
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><P
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> GNU/Linux is probably the platform of choice for scientific
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computing. There exists a wide variety of high level languages,
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debugging tools and other code development tools for
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programming, numerical subroutines for solving various types of
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equations, plotting and visualization packages, word processing
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software which can display equations and figures and in fact parallel
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programming software to construct a supercomputer with off the shelf
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PC parts and some hardware. This document aims to provide a list
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of <EM
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> free software </EM
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> for carrying out the above
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tasks and links to tutorials and other documents on how to setup and
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use these software applications.
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</P
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><P
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> This document does not aim to provide links to subject specific free
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software available for GNU/Linux systems. It aims to show how
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GNU/Linux can be used best to handle scientific computing tasks.
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It is hoped that people or institutions with interest in a
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specific subject list, compile a list of the free software available
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for that subject ... for example see <EM
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>Linux for Astronomy,
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Linux for Biotechnology </EM
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> and <EM
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> Linux for
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Chemistry </EM
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> at
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<A
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HREF="http://www.randomfactory.com"
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TARGET="_top"
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>The Random Factory
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</A
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>. Another site with a lot of links (to commercial and
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free) scientific software is
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<A
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HREF="http://SAL.KachinaTech.COM"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Scientific Applications
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on Linux</A
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>. The <A
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HREF="http://www.gnu.org/directory/science/"
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TARGET="_top"
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> GNU Software Directory</A
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> also has links to many of the links
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provided in this howto plus many more topic specific software.
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You may also want to check out <A
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HREF="http://freshmeat.net/browse/97/"
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TARGET="_top"
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> The Science and Engineering</A
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> section at Freshmeat.net.
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</P
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><P
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> The software links provided are classified into
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<P
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></P
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><UL
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./devtools.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Code development tools</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./mathpack.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Mathematics packages</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./numlib.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Numerical subroutines and libraries</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./graphvis.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Graphics and visualization</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./systems.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>GNU/Linux Systems</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./publish.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Publishing tools</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./database.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Databases</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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> <A
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HREF="./lablinux.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Linux in the Laboratory</A
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>
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</P
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></LI
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></UL
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>
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</P
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><P
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> Just installing GNU/Linux on your PC makes it a powerful workstation.
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The various popular distributions however do not have all the tools
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needed to make it the ideal scientific computing machine. This HOWTO
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aims to fill in this gap by creating a list of free software useful
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for scientific computing. It is assumed that people reading this
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document already have a PC with Linux and the GNU utilities installed.
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For those who do not have such a setup and want to install GNU-Linux
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can check out <A
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HREF="./GNULinuxWS.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>GNU/Linux Systems</A
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>
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for links to documents on installing GNU/Linux, and also on how to get
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started using GNU/Linux. Recently there has been an effort by Dirk
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Eddelbuettel to create a scientific computing environment
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<A
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HREF="http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Quantian</A
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>
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which probably is the first GNU-Linux distribution tailored for
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Scientists. I checked out the latest release and it has almost
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all the packages mentioned in this document and many packages
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not mentioned. It is fair to say that if you have any linux distribution
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in which the packages are managed by rpms or any debian based system,
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you will find pre-compiled binaries of these packages and will not
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have to waste much time installing them.
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</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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HREF="preamble.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="index.html"
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ACCESSKEY="H"
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>Home</A
|
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></TD
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ALIGN="right"
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><A
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HREF="devtools.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
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>Preamble</TD
|
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><TD
|
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
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> </TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
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>Code Development Tools</TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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> |