A quick look at installing MATLAB under Linux
2025-02-02
This week has been quite busy, so let's just take a quick look at one of the rather unique things I had to do during it - installing MATLAB under Linux...
After raging a bit about the fact that there is no proper way of installing it via any package manager
(even snap would have been fine for me), I firstly went on to visit the
MathWorks website
and create a student account for a free license. Once that is done the
official instructions
simply want you to download a compressed
.zip
folder, extract it and basically run with that - but that's obviously too clunky for me as proper
high-performer ;)
Here's how to install it properly or at least make the best out of the mess we have to deal with:
-
Extract the
.zipfile to a/.FILENAMEfolder in your home directory -
Open a terminal inside that folder and run the installation script with admin privileges via
sudo -H ./install -
Simply run through the installation process leaving all the defaults as they are, but ...
-
... write down the installation folder (
/usr/local/MATLAB/R2024bfor me) - ... install all necessary modules (just MATLAB and Simulink for me)
-
... choose to create symbolic links in the default folder (
/usr/local/binfor me)
-
... write down the installation folder (
-
Then we need to integrate MATLAB into our desktop environment via the
matlab-supportpackage:-
Install it via
sudo apt install matlab-support - Check that the installation folder matches the actual one
- Specify authorized users if needed
- Maybe rename MATLAB's GCC libraries if they cause any conflicts (they haven't for me so far)
-
Install it via
- And now you're done with just setting up the basic MATLAB experience
-
If you like dark mode just as much as I do, you might also want to install the
New Desktop for MATLAB Tech Previewadd-on and enable the dark UI underPreferences/Appearance- but keep in mind that it still is a preview and might cause instabilities
With that said, I truly hope you never have to use this software though, since it seems really messy and over-grown like a tumor in my limited experience. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments down below and have a lovely day...