I recently moved from Mac OS X to Ubuntu, and I'd like to (as much as possible) only use free software on my new machine. As a theoretical ecologist, I used to rely a lot on Mathematica, and even though there is a Linux version out there, I'd really rather use something free.

Some people have mentioned Maxima and sympy (both are fine with me), but I'd really love to hear about other alternatives, and people's experiences with any of these packages.