matlab-launcher/README.md

matlab launcher script / installation instructions for new linux machines

Context

matlab ships with shitty outdated qt and c++ libraries and it breaks on anything from the current decade.

this fixes it by making your pc fall back on the normal libraries.

also we're gonna do this in a user-owned folder because that just seems like a good idea

Installation

sudo mkdir -p /opt/MATLAB
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /opt/MATLAB

# get the matlab package manager and install matlab to the directory
wget https://www.mathworks.com/mpm/glnxa64/mpm
./mpm install --release=R2026a --destination=/opt/MATLAB/R2026a --products MATLAB Simulink

# broken libraries begone
cd /opt/MATLAB/R2026a/bin/glnxa64
mkdir exclude
mv libfreetype.so* exclude/

# ditto
cd /opt/MATLAB/R2026a/sys/os/glnxa64
mkdir exclude
mv libstdc++.so.6* exclude/

after installing, run matlab.sh to launch matlab

ACHTUNG! Gnome users et al.

Even if the installation works, launching the program may not. if you see an error similar to this:

dbus[27716]: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up: see the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue. (Failed to open "/mathworks/devel/bat/B3p1/build/3p/install/15160996/glnxa64/dbus/var/lib/dbus/machine-id": No such file or directory; Failed to open "/etc/machine-id": No such file or directory)

you likely need to run the following command as root:

dbus-uuidgen --ensure=/etc/machine-id