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How to install Matlab 2017b on Ubuntu 16.04
Go to the download page and download the installation file as a zip.
You may have to log in using your matlab credentials before downloading the installation file.
Install
unzip the installation file to anywhere you like.
open terminal, type the command below:
sudo sh install
change any settings as you see fit and install the software to its preferred location /usr/local/MATLAB
active MATLAB with your credentials
Create desktop entry (optional)
Type the following commands in the terminal.
Paste the following into the document and save it. (You may need to update the path to the matlab executable file if it is not installed in the default location, e.g. Exec=/usr/local/MATLAB/R2017b/bin/matlab -desktop )
Press super and then you should be able to find the MATLAB icon in the Unity Search.
Change initial working directory (optional)
By default, Matlab startups with the folder in which you run the matlab command. To use the folder specified by the Initial working folder preference, use the -useStartupFolderPref startup option and change the initial working directory as below.
On the Home tab, in the Environment section, click Preferences Select MATLAB > General . Choose an option for the Initial working folder preference.
Introduction
MATLAB® is a high-level language and interactive environment that enables you to perform computationally intensive tasks faster than with traditional programming languages such as C, C++, and Fortran.
You can use MATLAB in a wide range of applications, including signal and image processing, communications, control design, test and measurement, financial modeling and analysis, and computational biology. Add-on toolboxes (collections of special-purpose MATLAB functions, available separately) extend the MATLAB environment to solve particular classes of problems in these application areas.
MATLAB provides a number of features for documenting and sharing your work. You can integrate your MATLAB code with other languages and applications, and distribute your MATLAB algorithms and applications.
MATLAB R2014b on Ubuntu 14.04
From ISO
- First, mount the .iso file of the image with right-click, Open with and select Disk image mounter (if required).
- Open a terminal and change to the mounted image file. For example:
- cd /media/username/MATHWORKS_R2014A
From Download
Install
- Run the installer as a super user
- sudo ./install
- sudo apt-get install matlab-support
Now Matlab should also be launchable through unity and should work as intended.
MATLAB R2012a
Important Note Regarding Ubuntu 12.04
MATLAB R2012a was released on March 1, 2012. Please note that this is prior to the release of Ubuntu 12.04. Consequently Ubuntu 12.04 is not a supported operating system for MATLAB R2012a as it can be seen in the MATLAB Roadmap.
MATLAB R2012a users are strongly encouraged to install R2012a on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or Ubuntu 10.10 for best results. Help for the installation of MATLAB R2012a on Ubuntu 12.04 will however be given through this tutorial.
Important Note Regarding Student version (32-bit)
Unfortunately, 32-bit is the only version available to students.
If you have a 64-bit system, you will have some trouble but it is normally possible to go through each of them and the details are in the Troubleshooting section.
The following helps you be a length ahead of these problem. If you have a 64-bit system, you can still install 32-bit version of MATLAB. However, you will need to install the «ia32-libs» package before the installation. If you have Ubuntu 13.10 or later, check out this thread for more information.
Once it is installed, run the installer with the -glnx86 argument to force it to use 32-bit
Though for R2012a it is not necessary anymore. If you don’t run it with the -glnx86 argument, MATLAB will just say
at the start of the installation. And it will use 32-bit.
Then, just follow the instructions of the Installation Instructions section.
After the installation, you will need to run MATLAB with the -glnx86 argument to force it to use 32-bit
See the Troubleshooting section for more details on this.
Installation Instructions
Basic
See the Troubleshooting section if you get into trouble during the installation.
1. Run the MATLAB installer with the following Terminal command (The -v argument is for the install script to be verbose which means, it is more likely to warn you if something weird happens):
If it complains about java, try installing install »OpenJDK Java 6» package because MATLAB is not compliant with Java 7.
2. When prompted to ‘Choose installation type‘ you should select custom. This will allow you to create symbolic links to MATLAB in /usr/local/bin.
3. When prompted to ‘Specify installation folder‘ it is recommended that you use the default folder /usr/local/MATLAB/R2012a (or the default /usr/local/MATLAB/R2012a_student if you have a student version).
If you have a student version, the default folder will be /usr/local/MATLAB/R2012a_Student.
4. When given the option to ‘Create symbolick links to MATLAB scripts in:‘ it is recommended that you check the box and use the supplied path /usr/local/bin.
5. You can check that your installation work by executing the following command
See the Troubleshooting section if you get errors.
Create A MATLAB Launcher/shortcut
Automatic option: install package «matlab-support», sudo apt-get install matlab-support or via the Software Center on the dashboard.
Manual option as follows.
2. Get the launcher file:
If you have the student version of MATLAB (or simply the 32 bit version) on a 64 bit system, you will need to modify this file. Run
Then uncomment #Exec=matlab -arch=glnx86 -desktop and comment Exec=matlab -desktop (by adding or removing the # character).
If you get two MATLAB launcher icons in your Unity laucher, try uncommenting the following line in /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop:
If your launcher does not work, see the Troubleshooting section.
MEX functions
Warning
The content of this section has been written for R2011a with Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10. It may vary a lot if you are using the R2012a with Ubuntu 12.04.
If you try to compile MEX functions you may see a message like the following:
Note this is a warning — the MEX function will still compile.
The following instructions will setup gcc 4.3 and make it the default compiler for MATLAB:
2. Make a MATLAB specific bin directory for gcc symlink.
3. Symlink gcc to gcc-4.3 via user MATLAB specific bin directory.
4. Add MATLAB specific bin directory to the front of your system $PATH within your local startup.m file.
- 3a. At the MATLAB Command Window prompt, type:
and choose option 2 which says:
- 4a. Then edit this local file:
and replace all instances of CC='gcc' to CC='gcc-4.3', CXX='g++' to CXX='g++-4.3', and FC='gfortran' to FC='gfortran-4.3'. Save and exit. The next time you run MEX in MATLAB to compile it will work properly.
For more ideas, try this thread or this one.
Troubleshooting
No MATLAB bin directory for glnxa64
If MATLAB tells you
when you launch it, you will need to force it to use glnx86.
Solution for the command line (CLI) launch
If you like launching MATLAB from the command line, you will maybe find it inconvenient to write -glnx86 each time you need to launch it. You can then add it in your
/.bashrc (at the end if you hesitate where to put it)
Solution for the graphical (GUI) launch
You will need to add the -glnx86 argument to matlab in the exec line of your file /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop If you have followed the ‘Create a MATLAB Launcher’ section, you can just comment the line with the argument -glnx86 and uncomment the next line as explained in the file.
libc.so.6 not found
If you have Ubuntu 12.04 you like get the following error when running Matlab graphically:
How to Install Matlab on Linux
Matlab is one of the most famous and successful software projects ever. It’s the industry’s leading computing environment for all types of analytical/mathematical engineering works you may think of. It’s a fully functional programming language as well. I tend to think about it just like one of my professors told me many years ago: “What can you do in Matlab? You can do everything in Matlab”.
Many people are still under the illusion that Matlab does not work on Linux, and that it currently only works on Windows. This belief is false, and Linux has been officially supported by Matlab for many years now.
This tutorial will guide you through a full installation process to show you how to install Matlab on Linux.
Table of Contents
Steps to Install Matlab on Linux
Prerequisites
Of course, you know that Matlab is a proprietary software, so you’ll need to have a license in order to use it.
If you are a student, then you should check your university website for information related to where to obtain the software keys needed by the university students for Matlab. You may try to contact the information technology/help desk office in your university if you didn’t know where to search.
Otherwise, you’ll need to buy an individual license in order to use Matlab. You can do that from Matlab’s official website.
Download & Installation
- Once you are ready, head to Matlab’s website and click on the download button. You’ll be required to sign in into your MathWorks account which contains the license key. Once you login, you’ll be able to download Matlab according to your operating system, click on the Linux download option:
- After the file is downloaded, extract the file and the result should be a folder like matlab_R2019a_glnxa64 , now open the terminal and run:
Just check that
/Downloads/matlab_R2019a_glnxa64/ is the path of the extracted folder.
- Now, the Matlab’s installer will start:
If you do have a MathWorks account – as you should – then simply click next and continue, but if you have the license key in a file given to you by someone in your work/study department, then you have to select the second option.
- Then you’ll have to accept the license agreement:
- Then you’ll have to sign in into your MathWorks account, simply write your username and password:
- From here, you’ll be able to see the license that belongs to your account, select it and continue:
- Here you can choose the default installation location of Matlab. Normally, you don’t need to do any change in here, but if you want, you can choose any installation location you want on your disk:
- Then you can select the Matlab components you want to install:
- After you click next, you’ll be prompted into this window. The first option you see allows you to instantly run Matlab and its other scripts from the command line. In other words, it will allow you to write matlab in the command line, and then the program would start. This will save you time in writing the full absolute path each time you want to run Matlab or one of its components, so make sure to select it:
- Finally, you’ll see the installation summary, after which the installation will start:
- Now, you can run matlab from the command line using its installation location like this:
Setting Up a Matlab Launcher on Linux
We don’t want to always open the terminal and run the above command each time we want to open Matlab. Instead, we simply want to run Matlab using an icon in the applications menu. Sadly, Matlab doesn’t create one for us automatically after the installation – like it should have done – so we’ll need to create the launcher manually.
- First, we’ll need to get a nice icon for Matlab. Simply download this icon file, save it and put it in /usr/share/pixmaps folder (You’ll need root permissions to access that folder).
Now, run the following command:
- And then paste the below text inside:
- Save the file and exit. (Using CTRL + X, then hit Y, then Enter). Now, in your applications menu, you should see the Matlab icon:
Which if you click, Matlab will start:
GNU Octave: Open Source Matlab Alternative
GNU Octave is a free and open source software which its development started back in 1992. It’s also another computing environment for mathematical/analytical works or similar engineering tasks. A lot of people tend to think about GNU Octave as a free alternative to Matlab.
While the scripts you write on Matlab should may generally work under GNU Octave, the latter does not officially state that one of its goal is to be fully compatible with Matlab. GNU Octave also has extended syntax, meaning that some scripts written under GNU Octave will never work under Matlab.
Additionally, a lot of use cases seem to demonstrate that GNU Octave isn’t really capable of running all Matlab scripts out-of-the-box; there are a lot of errors and modifications that you’ll have to do manually on your scripts so that they can run under GNU Octave. GNU Octave is good for running simple m-files of Matlab, but not for complex or large ones. It also doesn’t contain nor support Matlab addons or an alternative to them, which are critical in a lot of scenarios. Matlab is superior in a lot of ways.
All of those reasons prevent us from recommending GNU Octave as a full free replacement for Matlab. But if you are not tied by industry/work restrictions, and you have time to learn, then you can adapt to GNU Octave’s syntax and use it as your main environment. You’ll find it in your official distribution’s repositories.
Conclusion
So far we have seen how to install Matlab on Linux and how to make it easy to run it any time we want.
Like we said, if Matlab is a critical software for your work, then you don’t need to worry about using it on Linux. It’s fully working with no problems or issues, including all its other addons and components, just as if you are running it under Windows.
If you have any comment about our tutorial, or Matlab on Linux or GNU Octave, we would love to hear them!
Hanny is a computer science & engineering graduate with a master degree, and an open source software developer. He has created a lot of open source programs over the years, and maintains separate online platforms for promoting open source in his local communities.
Hanny is the founder of FOSS Post.
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