Can I install MATLAB in Bash on Ubuntu on Windows?

The Windows 10 Anniversary update (Windows 10 build 1607) has an option to install a Bash shell based on a minimal Ubuntu 14.04 environment. Can I install MATLAB in this environment?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

Bash on Ubuntu on Windows is a minimal installation of Ubuntu and therefore lacks many of the libraries that MATLAB requires to install and run that would be present in a normal Ubuntu Linux installation. This configuration is not qualified for MATLAB.

[Giovanni Palumbo]

Dear all, is it still not possible to install matlab in linux bash on Windows 10?

[Walter Roberson]

Linux bash on Windows 10 is still a minimal version missing many of the necessary utilities.

[George Yammine]

It is possible to run Matlab under WSL. The things you need to make sure you have is the JRE installed and execstack. After which, in your matlab glnxa64 directory, you need to clear the execstack flag from libmwblas.so and libmwlapack.so, and set it for MATLAB

For example from the matlabroot dir:

sudo execstack -c glnxa64/libmwblas.so
sudo execstack -c glnxa64/libmwlapack.so
sudo execstack -s glnxa64/MATLAB

After which, you should be able to run matlab (note: in my case, I had to change the owner of the .matlab directory in my home folder, as during install as root it was owned by root and not my user). Attached is a screenshot of matlab running in WSL.

[Wen-Jing Lin]

Hi, I have installed JRE and execstack but when I tried to run these code:

sudo execstack -c glnxa64/libmwblas.so
sudo execstack -c glnxa64/libmwlapack.so
sudo execstack -s glnxa64/MATLAB

I got errors such as "execstack: cannot open "glnxa64/libmwblas.so": No such file or directory". It looks like I don't have the glnxa64 folder under matlabroot. Did I do something wrong? Thanks.

[Justin Ghetti]

Hi,

If you are still experiencing this issue, please contact MathWorks support:

https://www.mathworks.com/support/contact_us.html

-Justin

[Thanh Nguyen]

@George Yammine : Works for me. Thanks a lot!

-Thanh

[Jiayi]

This works for me. I am using Windows 10, WSL Ubuntu 18.04 and MATLAB R2016B

[Caterina Brighi]

Hi, I am having troubles with the installation of Matlab R2020a on my Ubuntu 18.04 WSL2. I am trying to use the silent installation instructions, by populating the installer_inut.txt file with the output folder, activation key, etc... the command run, but no folder gets created in my output directory. Any advice on how to fix this?

Thanks

Answer 2

[Winston Yu]

There are several things need to be fixed for default ubuntu on Windows 10

1. update basic library (for R2018a, MATLAB use glibc 3.4.22)

sudo apt-get install libstdc++6
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

2. install display library like mesa library (assume you are using opengl)

apt-get install mesa-utils

3. install jdk

apt-get install default-jdk

4. install execstack

apt-get install execstack

5. As George Yammine suggest, clean ELF of blas and lapack library, at matlabroot/bin/glnxa64, run command:

execstack -c libmwblas.so

execstack -c libmwlapack.so

execstack -s MATLAB

[Winston Yu]

Of course, I assume you want to use graphical MATLAB, so you might want to install Xwindows software like Xming at your Windows 10 host, and in Ubuntu shell, set "export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0'

[Paul Gesting]

In WSL2, the display has changed. See this answe at so

[Aaron Earle-Richardson]

I tried this for the newer MATLAB versions but the specific ELF files mentioned don't seem to exist. I tried runner the interactive installer and the window opens but it's blank. Any workarounds?

[Mahmod Karndash]

at step 5 < As George Yammine suggest, clean ELF of blas and lapack library, at matlabroot/bin/glnxa64, run command:

execstack -c libmwblas.so>

I have this error

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/root/softwares/R2018a/bin/glnxa64# execstack -c libmwblas.so

execstack: cannot open "libmwblas.so": No such file or directory

please help

Answer 3

[Winston Yu]

Mathworks now have mpm package to installing Linux binary: matlab-dockerfile/MPM.md at main · mathworks-ref-arch/matlab-dockerfile · GitHub

So, on WSL2, run these steps

sudo apt-get install -y unzip

wget https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

chmod +x mpm

./mpm install --release=R2018a --destination=/usr/local/MATLAB/R2018a MATLAB

Then MATLAB will be installed /usr/local/MATLAB/R2018a

Mahmod, you can't use /mnt/d to do any installation operation and also can't install MATLAB at /mnt/d, /mnt is Windows NTFS filesystem, can't be used as true Linux file system, you need to install the software somewhere else.

[Mahmod Karndash]

Winston yu ,thankyou for your reply ,Itried but Ihave error

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/daren/.cache’: Permission denied

-bash: /home/daren/.cache/wslu/integration: Permission denied

-bash: /home/daren/.cache/wslu/integration: Permission denied

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/c/WINDOWS/system32$ sudo apt-get install -y

[sudo] password for daren:

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/c/WINDOWS/system32$ wget https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

--2022-05-22 11:19:00-- https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

Resolving www.mathworks.com (www.mathworks.com)... failed: Temporary failure in name resolution.

wget: unable to resolve host address ‘www.mathworks.com’

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/c/WINDOWS/system32$

please help

[Mahmod Karndash]

please help .I have lxde desktop in ubuntu 18.04 on wsl2 and I want to install matlab R2018a in ubuntu 18.04 but I have always errors....I tried as you advised me but there is an error

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/root/softwares/R2018a# ls

activate.ini install licenses ui

archives install_guide.pdf patents.txt version.txt

bin installer_input.txt readme.txt

etc java sys

help license_agreement.txt trademarks.txt

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/root/softwares/R2018a# sudo apt-get install -y unzip

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

unzip is already the newest version (6.0-21ubuntu1.1).

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/root/softwares/R2018a# wget https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

--2022-06-05 22:53:38-- https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

Resolving www.mathworks.com (www.mathworks.com)... 104.122.196.55, 2001:500:200::b, 2001:500:a8::e, ...

Connecting to www.mathworks.com (www.mathworks.com)|104.122.196.55|:443... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found

2022-06-05 22:53:39 ERROR 404: Not Found.

please please help

[Yuquan Xu]

This is the best solution I have found. Thank you so so much! Just use mpm to install Matlab and any add-ons you like, but for matlab, you still need to do a silent acitivation.

Answer 4

[Winston Yu]

Mahmod :

Same as /mnt/d, /mnt/c is not a good place to install any WSL2 based software, it's NTFS also. you have to install the software not on /mnt and not use anything at /mnt during the installation.

I feel that your WSL2 installation is corrupted, the error message like:

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/daren/.cache’: Permission denied

indicate that something wrong with your WSL2 installation

Winston

[Walter Roberson]

The default linux file system, ext4, is case-sensitive unless you specifically configure otherwise (Linux 5.2 and later.)

The default Windows filesystem, is case-insensitive unless you specifically enable case-sensitivity https://www.windowscentral.com/how-enable-ntfs-treat-folders-case-sensitive-windows-10

This difference between expected case-sensitivity, but getting case-insensitivity, can cause problems. This is one reason not to install Linux on NTFS file systems.

[Mahmod Karndash]

I have wsl2 and I check the version of WSL each is set to by entering the command: wsl -l -v in PowerShell and I have

Windows PowerShell

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Try the new cross-platform PowerShell https://aka.ms/pscore6

PS C:\Users\Daren> wsl -l -v

NAME STATE VERSION

* Ubuntu-16.04 Running 2

PS C:\Users\Daren>

but when i run the following commands in ubuntu terminal

export DISPLAY=:0

export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1

startlxde ( main command to run the desktop)

i have error

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/daren/.cache’: Permission denied

-bash: /home/daren/.cache/wslu/integration: Permission denied

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:~$ sudo -s

[sudo] password for daren:

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:~# export DISPLAY=:0

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:~# export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:~# startlxde

Agent pid 555

** Message: main.vala:99: Session is LXDE

** Message: main.vala:100: DE is LXDE

(lxsession:553): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:~#

and I can not see the lxde desktop

please help me to install wsl2 and desktop (GUI) in WSL and how to install matlab r2018a in wsl As mentioned in the priorTuturial https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/1007325/PSI%20using%20SNAP_STAMPS%20tutorial%201%20_Installation%20and%20preperation%20(2).pdf

My processing of the data in my thesis is contingent on that and I don't have much time

Please forgive my ignorance in these topics, and thank you very much for your support and help

Answer 5

[Enrico Schulz]

Which library is exactly missing? It is very easy to add every needed library. There's lot of software that is actually runing, including graphical nautilus, synaptic, FSL etc. with xlaunch.

matlab -nodesktop -nodisplay -nojvm -nosplash Without the need for any graphical output I am running into the following error message: MATLAB: detail/MvmLocalBoundMethods.cpp:114: static void mvm::detail::MvmLocalBoundMethods::initMethods(bool): Assertion `Failed to open local mvm library: libmwblas.so: cannot enable executable stack as shared object requires: Invalid argument' failed. Aborted (core dumped)

Best wishes!

[kinger]

The same error occurred on my computer. I checked the library under /usr/local/MATLAB/R2017a/bin/glnxa64/, libmwblas.so does exist. Maybe the error is caused by some other problem?

[Philip Borghesani]

That error appears to be related to this missing feature: cannot enable executable stack as shared object requires. No missing library is causing the issue.

Answer 6

[Mufti Mahmud]

Dear MathWorks Support Team,

as the installation goes on well without any problem, would it be possible to let us know the required libraries to run which we may try to install manually and use it from the Bash!

That would be great!

Many thanks!

Answer 7

[alexandre obert]

The same error occurred when trying to implement Runtime through linux native programs - I've got ths error with freesurfer. I do not find any valuable solution by now...

[Kyle Perry]

Hi Alexandre,

If you are still having trouble with this issue please contact us so we can assist with the issue.

https://www.mathworks.com/support/contact_us.html

[alexandre obert]

Hi Kyle, Thanks, I'll contact you asap!

Answer 8

[Philip Borghesani]

I am curious Why would anyone want to do this? I can think of a few reasons, that I don't think are very good, but can think of no showstopper reason. I am not going to list my ideas here to avoid tainting the list.

What problem do you expect to solve or feature do you expect to gain by running Linux MATLAB on Windows instead of Windows MATLAB? Please post responses as comments to this answer.

[Walter Roberson]

They have a need to not be able to use the Windows-specific toolboxes, and to not be able to use ActiveX to talk to Excel and so on?

[Walter Roberson]

Potential reason: reproduciblity. The hope that by using the Linux version on Windows, that you will get the Linux version of the math libraries so that you can get the same results between both versions.

This is dubious, though, since the math libraries vary even with processor family and Linux release and distribution...

[alexandre obert]

Concerning my problem, it's more like a technical problem: I have to run a software that doesn't run on windows and I don't have a linux computer. Virtual machine is RAM consuming.

[Walter Roberson]

alexandre obert, to check:

Are you saying that you have another, third-party program, that runs under Linux and will run under Bash for Windows, and which you need to have MATLAB communicate with, so you want to run the Linux version of MATLAB under MS Windows in order to talk to that other program?

If so then I would wonder about what interfaces are going to be used to communicate with that program? IP protocols work under Windows, so if the interface is TCP or UDP then the Windows version of MATLAB could be used. Shared memory segments can be created under Windows, so shared memory could be used. Is it something like wanting to use MPI to communicate between MATLAB and the third party program ??

Or did I misunderstand you, and what you have on hand is just "MATLAB for Linux" but you do not have a Linux system to run it on? If so then you could just install the Windows version of MATLAB: the licenses are not specific to the operating system.

[alexandre obert]

You underline technical features that are just beyond my technical skills. "All" I need is Matlab Runtime. Precisely: the package/software (freesurfer) runs quite fine under MS Windows but a plugin that requires Matlab Runtime. I don't want full Matlab implementation. I searched a solution for my problem and found this post that underlines problems similar to mine.

[Walter Roberson]

https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/fswiki/DownloadAndInstall

indicates that some people have got freesurfer working on MS Windows (in the Linux layer.)

If I understand correctly, freesurfer itself is command line, so I think it is plausible it maybe be possible to use the MS Windows version of MATLAB with it, depending on the needs of the plug-in.

[kkyaj]

my reason: the provided source for my 2013a license is only available in 32bit on windows, but the linux version is 64bit.

[neuromechanist]

Hi alexandre,

I quite agree with your point. But, just consider, if that is the case, why Microsoft gave the sideload option in the first place?

I am working w/ EEGLAB (a Matlab tool for Brain signal analysis). Unfrotuantely quite often, there are binary pacakges that should be run in shell, so there is a need to have a shell environment. Specifcally, one of the packages, NFT, has a shell module that only works in linux environment.

So, I basicaly have two options, ehtier go back and forth between OSes, or use this feature to do my job all at once.

[pawelq]

I have Matlab scripts that call unique *nix-only programs

[pawelq]

Actually, I think I found a way around it.

from Matlab on Windows use:

[status, cmdout] = system(['wsl ~/programbin/unixprogram ~/datadir/datafile');

much simpler than installing Matlab on Linux on WSL

[Mahmod Karndash]

Please help , how do you install Matlab 2018a for Linux on Ubuntu WSL.I am using ubuntu16.04 wsl and I tried to install matlab r2018a but I can not, please help

When running the Installer on Linux, I see the below in terminal:

Preparing installation files …

Installing …

Finished.

the installer does not launch and MATLAB is not installed.

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# ls

activate.ini install licenses ui

archives installer_input.txt patents.txt version.txt

bin install_guide.pdf readme.txt

etc java sys

help license_agreement.txt trademarks.txt

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# sudo ./install

Preparing installation files …

Installing …

Finished

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a#

I tried using the suggested solution from mathworks but it didn’t work:

oot@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# ls

activate.ini install licenses ui

archives install_guide.pdf patents.txt version.txt

bin installer_input.txt readme.txt

etc java sys

help license_agreement.txt trademarks.txt

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# sudo chmod -R 777 matlab_R2018a_glnxa64

chmod: cannot access ‘matlab_R2018a_glnxa64’: No such file or directory

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a#

please help وMy work and results are stalled because of that

thank you in advance

Answer 9

[Francois]

Is there any hope for having this working at some point?

The one thing I tried for getting rid of these errors is the following:

execstack -s glnxa64/libmwblas.so
execstack -s glnxa64/libmwlapack.so

But then the execution simply stops after displaying the message "MATLAB is selecting SOFTWARE OPENGL rendering", without any error.

This would be helpful for setting up some specific research software environments, that require combinations of many programs (MATLAB, SPM, FreeSurfer, ...) in Windows environments.

Answer 10

[Sabyasachi Ghosh]

Is this still not possible, even with WSLg? I get the following error:

```

→ ./install

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::runtime_error'

what(): Failed to launch web window with error: Unable to launch the MATLABWindow application. The exit code was: 127

Aborted

```

[cui]

Is your platform windows 10 or 11, WSLg is not supported on windows 10, and windows 11 is still immature?

Answer 11

[Mahmod Karndash]

Please help , how do you install Matlab 2018a for Linux on Ubuntu WSL.I am using ubuntu16.04 wsl and I tried to install matlab r2018a but I can not, please help

When running the Installer on Linux, I see the below in terminal:

Preparing installation files …

Installing …

Finished.

the installer does not launch and MATLAB is not installed.

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# ls

activate.ini install licenses ui

archives installer_input.txt patents.txt version.txt

bin install_guide.pdf readme.txt

etc java sys

help license_agreement.txt trademarks.txt

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# sudo ./install

Preparing installation files …

Installing …

Finished

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a#

I tried using the suggested solution from mathworks but it didn’t work:

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# ls

activate.ini install licenses ui

archives install_guide.pdf patents.txt version.txt

bin installer_input.txt readme.txt

etc java sys

help license_agreement.txt trademarks.txt

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a# sudo chmod -R 777 matlab_R2018a_glnxa64

chmod: cannot access ‘matlab_R2018a_glnxa64’: No such file or directory

root@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/d/R2018a#

please help وMy work and results are stalled because of that

thank you in advance

Answer 12

[Mahmod Karndash]

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/daren/.cache’: Permission denied

-bash: /home/daren/.cache/wslu/integration: Permission denied

-bash: /home/daren/.cache/wslu/integration: Permission denied

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/c/WINDOWS/system32$ sudo apt-get install -y

[sudo] password for daren:

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/c/WINDOWS/system32$ wget https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

--2022-05-22 11:19:00-- https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

Resolving www.mathworks.com (www.mathworks.com)... failed: Temporary failure in name resolution.

wget: unable to resolve host address ‘www.mathworks.com’

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/c/WINDOWS/system32$ wget https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

--2022-05-22 12:01:53-- https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm

Resolving www.mathworks.com (www.mathworks.com)... 104.122.196.55

Connecting to www.mathworks.com (www.mathworks.com)|104.122.196.55|:443... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found

2022-05-22 12:01:54 ERROR 404: Not Found.

daren@DESKTOP-SMROJT0:/mnt/c/WINDOWS/system32$

please help ,,,,thank you in advance

[Walter Roberson]

is there a reason why you do not have write permission to create the .cache directory in your home directory?

[Mahmod Karndash]

I follow the following steps in the Tuturial and I could not install Matlab. Please help me to install Matlab as it is in the Tuturial

1- Installing WSL from Microsoft store

2- Installing the desktop (GUI) in WSL

It put us much more on ease for the following steps.

After typing the Ubuntu in the windows search bar and finding and running it, we are going to see the ubuntu terminal

A useful link in this regard: https: //docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

Then we should use the following commands in opened ubuntu terminal

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

then by the following command, we can install the light ubuntu desktop

sudo apt install lxde

In the next step, the VcXsrv Windows X Server utility should be installed in windows.

Link https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/files/latest/download

After installation, we should open VCxsrv software and set the

Initial setting in the software as the picture

Then we should run the following commands in ubuntu terminal

export DISPLAY=:0
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1
startlxde ( main command to run the desktop)

then we see the lxde desktop, each time that we want to use it we should rerun the last three commands

The more detailed instruction can be found in the following link

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-desktop-windows-subsystem/

1

2

3- Matlab installation in WSL

The MATLAB 2018a version is suggested for the latest WSL(2019-2020), for the older version you have to update some ubuntu packages

** it is important that the user name that you chose when you install the Ubuntu and the username that you want to use the MATLAB should be the same. Otherwise, you would face the user name problem

The Matlab 2018a version should be downloaded for Linux and be installed like other software in the Linux platform.

The following link might be helpful

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/308911-can-i-install-matlab-in-bash-on-ubuntu-on-windows

you might face other problems depending on which Pc you are working with. In that case, just google the errors. You would find plenty of helpful stuff on the internet. In my case, with the visual desktop, I have not experienced any errors other than user name mismatching.

In case you couldn’t figure it out how to install it, it is also possible to just move the prepared package by STaMPS to windows and also copy and paste all the files in stamps>MATLAB folder to the same folder and continue the rest of the steps in windows.

[Mahmod Karndash]

please do you help me to install wsl2 and desktop (GUI) in WSL and how to install matlab r2018a in wsl As mentioned in the priorTuturial https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/1007325/PSI%20using%20SNAP_STAMPS%20tutorial%201%20_Installation%20and%20preperation%20(2).pdf

please help

[cui]

@Mahmod Karndash，wsl2 and wslg install matlab please see here:

https://ww2.mathworks.cn/matlabcentral/answers/1597219-can-microsoft-s-wslg-windows-subsystem-for-linux-gui-support-running-matlab

Answer 13

[Jestzer]

For installation alone, you can use MATLAB Package Manager to do an installation with minimal fuss.

However, you'll probably still have issues launching MATLAB because you're probably missing plenty of libraries. To see which ones you're missing, run the MATLABWindow application until you no longer get any library errors and it launches. By default, MATLAB R2022b installs to /usr/local/MATLAB/R2022b and the MATLABWindow application is in /usr/local/MATLAB/R2022b/bin/glnxa64. Its name is literally MATLABWindow, so you can do ./MATLABWindow once you've cd'd into the folder. Obviously, you'll need to change folder I mentioned above if you're not using R2022b or installed it elsewhere.

This approach worked for me on WSL2 with Ubuntu and Debian. If you don't know which libraries to install, use this search page.