Julia

Install some commonly needed modules and build them once.

Pkg.add("Plots")                    # Base module for plotting
Pkg.add("GR")                       # Plotting backend
Pkg.add("MAT")                      # Read mat files
Pkg.add("ControlSystems")           # Control system
Pkg.add("DifferentialEquations")    # ODE solvers
Pkg.add("ApproxFun")                # Function approximation like Chebfun

After each add, build the module using

Pkg.build("Module")

On Linux, to install MAT, you need the hdf5-tools package to be installed first

sudo apt install hdf5-tools

To test the plotting, do the following (you must have installed Plots and GR modules using Pkg.add)

using Plots
gr()
x = linspace(0,2*pi,100);
y = sin.(x);
plot(x,y)