Monday, May 12, 2008

Instaling MATLAB R2007a on Ubuntu 8.04

One of the most prominent reason's for which I had to stay in Windows was MATLAB. As an engineering student, I need MATLAB very often. But I didn't find MATLAB CD/DVD for linux in the computer markets of Dhaka. I have installed VMWare Server on my Ubuntu and installed Win XP inside the virtual machine and thereby tried to use MATLAB in linux. But the performance was too poor to be useful. At last I got MATLAB R2007a Unix DVD and thought "wow, now i don't have to stay in windows!!". I am giving here the complete procedure of installing MATLAB R2007a Unix on Ubuntu 8.04.

  • You must have SUN JAVA installed to use MATLAB on GUI. So please install sun-java in your Ubuntu first. You can do it easily through Synaptic. Just search for "sun-java" and from the search results install the latest version.
  • I am assuming that you have Java installed and you have the ISO image of MATLAB R2007a Unix DVD. If the ISO image is in location /home/{yourname}/ directory and you want to install MATLAB in /usr/local/matlab74 directory then:
Be root
$sudo -i
Password:

Make mount directory for the ISO image and mount
$mkdir /media/iso
$modprobe loop
$mount /home/{yourname}/matlab.iso /media/iso/ -t iso9660 -o loop

Create installation directory
$mkdir /usr/local/matlab74
$ cd /usr/local/matlab74

Copy the license file into installation directory
$cp /home/{yourname}/license.dat ./

Start installing matlab
$sh /media/iso/install

Configure the necessary aspects during the GUI installation guide. Usually default values are OK
After installation, run the post installation script

$sh install_matlab

Again the default values offered are OK. Continue with pressing 'y'
Here it is. The installation is complete. You can now run MATLAB without any trouble !! Just type in terminal [you don't need to be root anymore..]

$cd /usr/local/matlab74/bin
$sh matlab

You can create a desktop shortcut for easy starting matlab. Create a launcher with command

matlab -desktop

  • If you have problem with matlab menubar, like the menubar disappears when you enable Compiz Fusion, do the following
$sudo -i
Password:

$gedit /usr/local/matlab74/bin/matlab

Add this line just after "#!/bin/sh"

export MATLAB_JAVA=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/

Now you should find the menubar even with Compiz Fusion enabled... :-)

6 comments:

babar said...

mann this does not work for me when i enter the command:
root@laptop:~# mount /home/{myname}/Desktop/matlab.iso /media/iso/ -t iso9660 -o loop

i get the following error:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

kindly help!!!

Hafiz Imtiaz said...

@babar

Did you "modprobe" first?
If you are using Ubuntu 8.04 or 8.10, you shouldn't even "modprobe".

You may try this command:

# mount -o loop /home/abcd/Desktop/matlab.iso /media/iso

Here, "abcd" is your name.

babar said...

thanks for the reply ... i am using ubuntu 8.10 ... i solved the problem of mounting using fuseiso ... but now i have another problem ... i dont have the license.dat file separatly i mean it is in the image matlab.iso how can i copy it???it gives an error no such file found(cz thrz no file named license.dat hope u understnd)
thanking in advance

Hafiz Imtiaz said...

The "license.dat" file should not be in the ISO image. It is the license file that you've got separately when you bought/collected the MATLAB DVD. If you don't have it, contact the Mathworks authority to send you one [the legal way] or you can search the torrent portal sites [like www.torrentz.com] for MATLAB license file [its the illegal way, so do at your own risk]. I can't give you the link of it because of legal issues. Hope you understand. Take care.

vheights said...

thanxxxxx
bro

પ્રત્યાયન said...

I am a new ubuntu user.

I have downloaded iso version of Matlab (3.7 GB) of this form: Mathworks.Matlab.R2009a.UNIX.ISO-TBE.iso

This iso file has license.dat file and activation key available.

I have put this iso in: home/{user-name}
Now, How can I install it?

I tried the given tips but it does not work for me.

Please email me on: spancham@yahoo.com