Matlab seems to install fine, but will not run in Ubuntu 14.04, no error message provided

I've installed Matlab R2014a on Ubuntu 14.04 server (with ubuntu-desktop installed). Everything seemed to go fine with the installation - no errors were reported. When I try to run matlab from a terminal window, nothing happens. No error messages are reported. "top" reveals 0% CPU and 0.1% memory used by the MATLAB process. CTRL-C does not kill the process - I have to kill it manually with the kill command. Adding the -debug or -nojvm or -nodesktop arguments does not alter this behavior.

I know that 14.04 is not officially supported yet, but there are reports of it working out there. I'm kind of stuck with no information. Does anyone have any suggestions about what to try? Is there some way for me to get additional troubleshooting data?

Thanks, Kyle

[kishore kumar]

Where do you find the installation file for ubuntu 14.14

Answer 1

[Raag]

Did you try

sudo apt-get install matlab-support

?

[Dave]

I've tried this and although it seems to install fine, Matlab will not launch.

[Dyl]

Thanks, Raag. It worked for me.

[HATUNGIMANA GERVAIS]

Confirmed the solution above works fine.Thanks

[aguadopd]

Worked, Kubuntu 14.04 and Matlab R2015b

[Kayleen Fulton]

Worked for me. Ubuntu 16.04, MatLab R2016b

[Hamed Jahromi]

sudo apt-get install matlab-support works for me. Thank you very much for your help.

[Walter Roberson]

I grabbed an Ubuntu 14.04 image from Parallels and with it I had no difficulty installing MATLAB. I do have problems with the graphics due to the virtual machine setup; I only get the basic graphics but it works.

[Walter Roberson]

I installed MATLAB on a Kubuntu 16.04 virtual machine I got from osboxes. The installation of MATLAB was a bit fussy because the Kubuntu graphics would freeze (the complete display, but I could switch to a console). I can run the command line version. The graphics does not work at all on the virtual machine MATLAB due to a missing extension (something about SGI) same as I had with Ubuntu 16.04 that was a beast on there. I probably will not try to fix it. The whole Kubuntu installation was a bit wonky on my virtual machine software, which could not recognize that there was an OS there,so potentially there were glitches in what I did manage to install.

Answer 2

[Dave]

The trick is:

sudo chown username -R ~/.matlab

[Hamid]

Hi Dave can you explain the reason?

[Walter Roberson]

Ratnajit Mukherjee comments "This solution works. I had the same problem with R2015a with Ubuntu 14.04 and this worked."

[Shu]

Dave's method works for me. Nearly the same problem.

[NEERENDRA KUMAR]

It worked. But, addon 'hardware support packages' are not installing on it

[roger]

Works well!. Thanks a lot.

[Zeyun Zhong]

it works!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!

[Moge Du]

It works the first time. But cannot work after...

Ubuntu 20.04

MATLAB R2018b

[Rafael Espericueta]

It didn't work on Ubuntu 18.04 with MATLAB R2020b.

[Isha Misra]

It is not working for me. It tells missing operand after .matlab

Answer 3

[BanzayCL]

Nowadays on Ubuntu 16.04 you need to do both steps.

1) sudo apt-get install matlab-support

Then follow instructions.

2) Open a Terminal on your home folder and then "sudo chown username -R ~/.matlab"

Finally if you want full integration with your operating system , like being able to opening .m files directly by doing double click, you need to edit /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop

Find "Exec=" line and replace with: Exec=matlab -desktop -r "cd %d"

Then you have matlab as an "Open With" application option.

[Gnana guru]

Hi BanzayCL, In mine,if i try "sudo chown guru -R ~/.matlab" it shows

chown: cannot access '/home/guru/.matlab': No such file or directory

What to do now?Thanks in advance

[Andreas Kvalbein Fjetland]

if you did not allow the matlab instalation to create shortcuts for you in "/usr/local/bin" you might have to referance the matlab program by its total path. in my case that is

/opt/matlab/R2016a/bin/matlab

[Walter Roberson]

I installed MATLAB on a Ubuntu 16.04 virtual machine I got from osboxes. The installation went OK and I can run the command line version. The graphics does not work at all on the virtual machine MATLAB due to a missing extension (something about SGI) that is proving to be a beast to fix. I probably will not bother.

[Walter Roberson]

Note: on the Ubuntu 16.04 virtual machine, if I allowed Ubuntu to update the operating system components then I would hit a login window loop with gnome telling me that that there was a severe failure and that the failwhale was dead. Which is nothing to do with MATLAB, just a note to anyone who was thinking of experimenting with the same virtual machine

Answer 4

[Ibraim Ibraimi]

hi

I installed Matlab 2019a student on my Laptop using Ubuntu operating system. After the installation I used these commands to create a shortcut of matlab2019a (I copied them from a website):

sudo wget -qO /usr/share/icons/matlab.png goo.gl/NDyi9t

sudo wget -qO /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop goo.gl/NaHXrn

What I then get is a shortcut 2012a. On the top of that, the matlab is not starting. I am wondering if different version has to do with a wrong installation or rather with a wrong shortcut. I also dont understand why it is not starting. Many thanks for your help.

Answer 5

[Annas Mazhar]

I am having trouble starting up matlab after installation nothing happens once i click on the icon. Can someone please help me out.

[Annas Mazhar]

I am using ubuntu 20.04 and the matlab version is 2020b

Answer 6

[Gongting]

This is the first few results when I googled matlab ubuntu. The latest Matlab (2016a) has problem running on Ubuntu 16.04 or older, it halts immediately after start. Just to make life easier for people had this problem, I posted the solution here.

As someone has posted this on askubuntu, the problem is Matlab uses the old C library. You can force matlab to use the latest library by removing libstdc++.so.6. or rename it to something different.