In the past, SEP spent a considerable effort to install popular tools such as emacs, gcc, ghostview, etc. on all its UNIX platforms. For Linux these tools were available in precompiled form and most were included as installation options on the CD-ROM. The following table lists just a few of the tools that were installed with a single click or command.
| Package | Description |
| ghostview, ghostscript | Postscript viewer and interpreter |
| emacs | Editor and much more ... |
| gcc, g++, f2c, g77 | Compilers |
| TEX, LATEX2e | Typesetting languages |
| perl | Practical extraction and report language |
| gawk | Document formatting language |
| XFree86 | The X11 release 6 window system |
| xfig | Idraw alternative: interactive drawing tool |
| xdvi | DVI Previewer |
| java, javac, jdb | Java language development tools |