Esri ArcGIS - The leading commercial software for desktop GIS mapping and analysis. One-year licenses are available to all UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. The GIF (Geospatial Innovation Facility) provides information and a form for requesting a license. Note: ArcGIS only runs natively on Windows machines.
QGIS - A leading free, open source desktop GIS program. Create, edit, visualize, analyze and publish geospatial information. Runs natively on many operating systems, including Windows and Mac.
UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff have access to ArcGIS Online (AGOL) through our institutional account. To login into UC Berkeley's AGOL account, go to http://cal.maps.arcgis.com. Click on the link to login using your UC Berkeley Calnet account.
If you find that you need to login to other applications that use ArcGIS Online, look for a link that says, "Sign in with enterprise account."