AmberJ's weblog: Installing MATLAB on Linux

Notes:

These instructions have been tested for MATLAB R2011a on Lubuntu 11.10.
For more details, refer to install_guide.pdf in MATLAB setup ISO/folder. You can get this file (and complete official MATLAB documentation) for free (just create a free MathWorks account) at:
- Installation documentation (for latest version of MATLAB)
- Printable PDF documentation (for latest version of MATLAB)
- Documentation for older releases

I followed these steps to install MATLAB on Lubuntu Linux:

Extract or mount the MATLAB ISO file. Let's assume that you extracted MATLAB ISO file to
```
/home/user/matlab
```
Change to the extracted directory and run:
```
cd /home/user/matlab
sudo ./install
```
When I ran above command, I got this error message (and installer exited without completing the install):
```
user@system:~/matlab$ sudo ./install 
[sudo] password for user: 
Preparing installation files ...
Installing ...
eval: 1: /tmp/mathworks_2463/java/jre/glnx86/jre/bin/java: Permission denied
Finished
user@system:~/matlab$
```
MathWorks India has a solution page to this problem. It lists the cause of problem and a solution. But this solution is better (imho) and worked very well for me! All you need to do is run following command on terminal/console:
- For Linux (32-bit):
```
chmod ugo+x /home/user/matlab/java/jre/glnx86/jre/bin/java
```
- For Linux (64-bit):
```
chmod ugo+x /home/user/matlab/java/jre/glnxa64/jre/bin/java
```
Google has loads of related stuff if you search for "matlab java Permission denied".
Don't start MATLAB after installation. Run these commands on terminal [1]:
```
mkdir ~/.matlab
sudo chown -R ${USER}:${USER} ~/.matlab
```
MATLAB got installed (by default) to /usr/local/MATLAB. To run matlab use:
```
/usr/local/MATLAB/R2011a/bin/matlab
```

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