Warning: rant ahead!

I don't know how many of you ever tried running matlab on linux... if there's a program that's keeping me from toasting windows from my hd, that's MATLAB. I have to run some simulations for a class I've been in this last semester, and the linux version is the worst piece of crap I've ever come across in quite some time: simulink crashes on startup on a regular basis, symbolic math doesn't work because of some missing maple library, simulink accelerator won't start because of some other function it can't seem to find anywhere on my hd, graphical interface resembles stuff from the early 90's... not to mention the installation procedure. The sys I'm trying to get this thing to run on is an Athlon XP with a clean sarge install, hence no exotic setup. Now either it's me who's demented, or the linux version just sucks! What's your experience with matlab on linux been like? I'd apprecciate your feedback, thanks in advance.

I just installed Student version R12 last night/this morning and it starts up with java disabled, which I'm guessing is why the GUI doesn't come up and it starts in the command line mode in the same terminal. I don't know exactly what the error meant, but I may post it later looking for advice.

Hopefully soon I will be able to testify to the experience of Matlab on Suse 9.1.

R14SP2 works fine on 32bit but crashes on 64bit.

Odd problem...
Maybe Scilab (www.scilab.org) can do the job for you. Since version 3, they claim to be compatibile with Matlab + Scilab. I haven't tried it yet.

here I am again after a long day working on matlab... problems with copy and paste and my mouse cursor which would suddenly stop working in simulink drove me insane... but I seem to understand the problem is with java... trust me when I say I have never seen such a messy piece of crap in over 15 years of computing

Sorry to hear of your problem. There are two other math
utilities you might want to check out.

Mathematics
http://mathomatic.orgserve.de/math/ (non-commercial; Mathomatic)
http://maxima.sourceforge.net/ (non-commercial; Maxima)

Sheng-Chieh

What Java VM/Version are you using that is having these problems?

I've been using Matlab for a few years under linux and haven't had any of these problems.

I installed MATLAB very easily under mandrake 10.1 but I get a segmentation error under SUSE 9.3. The SUSE error reads segmentation fault "$xsetup" $arglist.

Anyone know of a possible solution for SUSE 9.3?

Mat

Hmmm... I used matlab quite a bit under linux for one of my classes and never had any problems. The problem might be deeper than matlab.

This reeks of a messed up install.
Especially the part about missing maple libraries.
Wipe it and reinstall and make sure you get those libraries installed as well.

I know for a fact that tons of people at my old University used to use matlab on linux without problems (because we forced to use it at school )
I hate matlab too, but because of its syntax.
There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to run it without crashes or mouse freezes, etc..

I can confirm that this problem is exclusively a 64-bit problem. I have used Matlab for a long time, and only after I switched to 64-bit OS did installation, Java, and OpenGL problems come into play. Ways to mitigate the problem:

1. Use the 32-bit wrapper:
$matlab -glnx86
instead of
$matlab -glx64 (default on a 64bit system)

2. Don't use the java GUI unless you really have to:
$matlab -glnx86 -nojvm

3. Use a separate editor for the m files, e.g. emacs or kate have good matlab markup/utils built in.

QC.

If you want an alternative to Matlab, try out octave.

http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/


Its mostly Matlab compatible, meaning that your Matlab scripts should run in Octave and vice versa (although I've never tested this myself). Unfortunatley Octave doesn't have a nice GUI environment that I know of and is all command-line based, but it is still quite powerful. It uses gnuplot for plotting and from what little I remember about Matlab, the graphing interface was much more powerful than gnuplot.

I have no sorted my problem and I can run matlab (at work) on linux and it is the sweetest piece of software I have ever used, it never fails to do the business, mathworks have produced some VERY good software and their support is second to none.

I have a personal user license so I can use it at home as well, I messed up my home install my (I think) making some links and having the dchp server define my hostname which is now causing problems

Mat

Plz help me to install matlab in ubuntu 10.04 ( 64 bit ) ... thanking u in advance