How to Install Matlab in Linux

Prerequisites

Administrative access
unrar CLI utility tool

unrar can be installed with the command

Ubuntu

sudo apt install unrar

Fedora

sudo dnf install unrar

Extracting the Package

At first we need to extract the contents of the downloaded MATLAB 2018a rar file, it can be done with the command

unrar x <filename>.rar

In the extracting process it might ask for a password, the password should be provided by mathworks.

After the extraction process there sould be 2 iso files in the extracted folder, we need to mount this iso files to combine them into 1 installer file, but at first we need need create the mount points

Creating The Mounting points

To mount the iso files, the mounting point directories should be created first. We will make total 3 directories at /media/

dvd1 directory to mount the dvd1.iso file
dvd2 directory to mount the dvd2.iso file
installer directory to combine all the components of dvd1 & dvd2 directory

The following commands should be used to create the directories

sudo mkdir -p /media/mathworks/dvd1

sudo mkdir -p /media/mathworks/dvd2

sudo mkdir -p /media/mathworks/installer

Mounting The ISO Files to Mounting points

sudo mount -t iso9660 -o loop <path to dvd1>/dvd1.iso /media/mathworks/dvd1

sudo mount -t iso9660 -o loop <path to dvd1>/dvd2.iso /media/mathworks/dvd2

Creating The installer

sudo cp -r /media/mathworks/dvd1/* /media/mathworks/installer/

sudo cp -r /media/mathworks/dvd2/* /media/mathworks/installer/

Run The Installer

sudo sh /media/mathworks/installer/install

The installer will run, it will ask for installation location, which modules you wish to install. In the middle of the installation it will ask for a product key or online license. I have a Product Key option should be selected and the product key is stored in the readme.txt file

Post Installation Operations

Copy the license_standalone.lic to the license directory at the installation directory
```
sudo cp /path/to/license_standalone.lic /path/to/installation/directory/licenses/
```
Similarly the libmwgrimpl.so file should be replaced by the provided libmwgrimpl.so file
```
sudo cp /path/to/libmwgrimpl.so /path/to/installation/directory/libmwgrimpl.so
```

Create a matlab.desktop file to create a desktop icon for the application

touch ~/.local/share/applications/matlab.desktop

Open the .desktop file with nano

nano ~/.local/share/applications/matlab.desktop

And paste the following entries

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=R2018a
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/path/to/executable/file/matlab -desktop
Name=MATLAB
Icon=/path/to/icon/file

To launch matlab from terminal aliases are set as

alias matlab="exec /path/to/bin/matlab"
alias matlabcli="exec /path/to/bin/matlab -nodekstop"

Now MATLAB 2018a is almost ready to be used from the application center, or from the terminal itself.

Conclusion

In this blog it shown how to install MATLAB 2018a is installed from 2 iso dvds provided by mathworks. All the settings are done in step by step manner and MATLAB should be ready to be launched, but there can be some font issue or some library issues which may lead to no window launching or simulink does not open etc. But they can be resolved by some tweaking.

Pranjal Das