Installing MATLAB on Arch Linux

Greetings. I needed MATLAB for my master’s studies, so I looked into how to install it on Arch Linux and wrote this post based on my own setup. The installation works for me; for more information and detail, check the Arch Linux Wiki.

If you have the means, I recommend using GNU Octave instead of MATLAB.

I assume you know your own filesystem and how to launch an application without clicking an icon.

Installation

This installation is written for MATLAB R2022b; it will probably work for other versions too.

Download the zip archive

Download the .zip archive from MATLAB’s own official site. To download it, you need an account with a license. I’ll assume you downloaded it to your Downloads folder.

Create two new folders

cd ~/Downloads
mkdir matlab
mkdir tmp

Move the zip file

mv matlab_R2022b_glnxa64.zip matlab/
cd matlab/

We do this so that extracting the zip file doesn’t clutter your Downloads folder with unnecessary things.

Extract the zip file

unzip matlab_R2022b_glnxa64.zip

Remove the incompatible library

rm ./bin/glnxa64/libfreetype.so*

Some libraries used by the installer are incompatible with Arch Linux’s freetype2 library. For this reason we must delete these files.

Launch the installer

sudo ./install -downloadFolder /home/<username>/Downloads/tmp/

Launch the installer with sudo so the tool can create the /usr/local/MATLAB/ path and create the link in /usr/local/bin.

Continue with the installer

IMPORTANT: Select the “Create symlinks to your $PATH” option. Sometimes it may not be selected by default. It is necessary so you don’t have to set the path manually and run the program by typing text.

IMPORTANT: Your username must match the output of the whoami command.

This way the files will download successfully and the installation will be completed.

Activate MATLAB

cd /usr/local/MATLAB/R2022b/bin/
sudo ./activate_matlab.sh

You need to do the verification you did during installation a second time here.

MATLAB doesn’t work when I run the matlab command!

It’s quite normal to think the program will run when you call the matlab command. When you run this command, a small MATLAB window probably appears and then disappears. To run it in GUI mode, you should run the program with the matlab -desktop command.

Unable to connect to the license server.

If you’re getting this error, then you’re getting the same error as me. Since it’s a license tied to the university, the program doesn’t work without being connected to the university network.

For this reason, if your university has a VPN network, you can connect to the VPN and run the program.

Epilogue

Thanks to this guide, you may have completed the installation or not. To not deal with these kinds of headaches, GNU Octave can be a good alternative. We can’t say it’s exactly the same as MATLAB, but it will get the job done most of the time.

Stay well.