Maxima - Installing the necessary software:
Depending upon the platform on which it is to run, Maxima requires a set of additional programs to be installed for all of its features to be available. While this installation can be somewhat lengthy and tedious, it is fairly straightforward and only needs to be done once.
Platform Installation Sequence Download From Installation Notes
Mac OS X
(10.2.x)		 Developer Tools http://developer.apple.com/tools/download/
(free, but requires registration)		 Needed to compile some components.
Tcl/Tk http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcl/
(Click on the Download link on the Tcl line; TclTkAquaBI is the correct version here)		 Needed for Maxima to display plots.
TeX http://www.rna.nl/tex.html
(scroll down for the installer)		 Needed to typeset the output of Maxima.
Ghostscript

http://www.rna.nl/tex.html
(scroll down for the installer)

Needed to convert output to PDF format. If you have already installed ESP Ghostscript for use with Gimp-Print, you do not need to install it again.
LaTeX Equation Editor http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/software/EquationEditor/ Needed to provide an interface to the typesetting process.
Fink http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php Needed to install Maxima.
Maxima

Make sure you're connected to the Internet; open a Terminal window, then type:
fink install system-tetex
fink install system-ghostscript
fink install maxima
(this last install may take a long time - depending on the speed of your Mac)

 The main program. When installing Maxima, Fink will ask you if it can install some other programs needed by Maxima - accept its suggestions.
After installing everything on Mac OS X, it is a good idea to "clean up" permissions by running the Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions option.
Windows
(95, 98, ME, 2000, XP) 		MiKTeX http://www.miktex.org/setup.html Needed to typeset the output of Maxima.
Ghostscript http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/index.htm Needed to convert output to PDF format.
Maxima http://maxima.sourceforge.net/download.shtml The main program.
Linux
(all major current distributions) 		Programmer's Tools (compilers, etc.) These tools are included with all major Linux distributions - follow your distribution's instructions to install them, if you have not done so already. Needed to compile some components.
Tcl/Tk Needed for Maxima to display plots.
TeTeX Needed to typeset the output of Maxima.
Ghostscript Needed to convert output to PDF format.
GCL (Gnu Common Lisp) These tools are included with many Linux distributions. If your distribution does not include them, RPMs can be downloaded from:
http://maxima.sourceforge.net/download.shtml		 Needed to run Maxima.
Maxima The main program.

We welcome your feedback on this workflow/tutorial - please email us at symmath@hippasus.com