New user: where to start?



Hi Dotan,
   Based on what I have seen, Adam Majewski's suggested URL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Maxima is an excellent place to start.
Another manual which I have found useful is at
http://www.math.psu.edu/glasner/Max_doc/macref.pdf, and there is also an
online reference manual at
http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/maxima/maxima_toc.html.
   I and perhaps many others like to learn by example.  A nice feature in
Maxima is 'example'.  If you say 'example(matrices);', you will get several
examples to show how matrices are manipulated.  Saying just 'example();'
tells you what keywords the example function allows.
George Leeman 

-----Original Message-----
From: maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu [mailto:maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu]
On Behalf Of Dotan Cohen
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 4:01 AM
To: maxima at math.utexas.edu
Subject: New user: where to start?

I am a new Maxima user, and I am having a very hard time finding
complete newbie information. Everything that I've found assumes that
one is either computer programmer or familiar with Mathematica. Are
there any dead-newbie level resources for learning to use Maxima? In
general, I'd like to solve matrices, polynomials, and graph calculus
functions with one and two variables. Thanks in advance.

Dotan Cohen