database software?

[KL]

hi,
I was wondering if there might be a software that is suited to making class
rosters and doing simple data analysis like excel but perhaps a bit more
'unix-like'?.  I've heard that perl might do the job (?) I've looked at R
which seems to have really powerful statistical tools, but perhaps a bit too
much for the simple task of keeping track of a set of numbers corresponding
to a set of names and producing histograms every now and then. I guess my
question really is, if one would use latex in place of word, what might one
use in place of excel for the task of keeping a classroom list?
Thanks,
KL