MATLAB is a powerful and popular technical computation tool. Not only does it perform complex mathematical and physical calculations, it is highly useful in a wide range of applications, including signal and image processing, communications, control design, test and measurement, financial modeling and analysis, and computational biology. MATLAB releases a version for Linux/Unix systems.

How to install MATLAB on Ubuntu :

If you have a MATLAB CD (Linux version), insert it into the CD drive and open a terminal and browse to the directory where CD is mounted. The directory is generally /media/cdrom or /media/cdrom0.

If you have an image file of MATLAB CD (Linux version), open a terminal and browse to the folder where the file is present. Then mount the image file onto a temperory folder and browse into it with the following commands. (Replace IMAGE_FILE_NAME by the name of the image file.)

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mkdir matlab_temp
 
sudo mount -o loop image_file_name matlab_temp
 
cd matlab_temp

Then start the installation as root with the following command.

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sudo ./install

The installation will start now and select your mode of installation (with or without internet).

Choose the directory into which you want to install MATLAB. In Linux machines, it is a convention to use /usr/local to install user installed softwares. Hence choose /usr/local/matlab as the installation directory.

Enter the product key when prompted for.

Choose the modules you would like to install and then the actual installation begins.

Once this is finished you will be prompted to activate MATLAB. This can be done using Internet or without it if you have the lisence file on your computer.

Once the installation is finished you need to add the MATLAB bin folder to your PATH variable to be able to use MATLAB using the command “matlab”. This can be done by executing the command

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gedit ~/.bashrc

Now an editor window will open. At the bottom of the file add the following line

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export PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin/matlab/bin

Now the installation is done.If you installed using an image file, unmount the image using the command

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cd ..
 
sudo umount matlab_temp

Note that MATLAB on Linux always has to be launched from the terminal using the command “matlab”. When MATLAB runs, the terminal from which it is launched must not be closed.

So get back to your work on MATLAB, this time on your Ubuntu machine !!