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I am trying to install Matlab in my personal computer running Ubuntu 14.04.

The directory for installation is /usr/local/MATLAB/R2014a, on which I can get permissions using sudo when in the terminal.

However, Matlab has its own installation process which runs a wizard on independent windows.

When I follow the wizard, I am not able to get access to that installation directory.

Does anyone know how to get such permissions for the installation?

Thank you in advance.

2 Answers 2

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If you know the path of the folder, say /home/test_folder, then all you do is:

sudo chmod -R 775 /home/test_folder

And you get full read and write permissions!

EDIT: the -R ensures recursive permission changes so be careful not to run this command on a folder that is high up on your system (as this could make EVERY folder read/write-able, prone to security issues).

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  • Thank you for your help. I am still getting an error that says 'Unable to create the destination folder /usr/local/MATLAB/R2014a'. I have tried changing the permissions with your command beforehand both on /usr/local and /usr/local/MATLAB/R2014 which I created. Would you have idea of what this means? Thanks.
    – Diego-MX
    Jun 10, 2014 at 19:31
  • well you can't create a folder with the same name :) think about it like this: if you're trying to let an installer create a folder but get a message with read write issues just grant the parent folder the permissions. In your case, /usr/local/MATLAB. This error is because that folder already exists.
    – ZekeDroid
    Jun 10, 2014 at 20:32
  • This makes sense, but still didn't do the trick. =(
    – Diego-MX
    Jun 10, 2014 at 23:55
  • After finally contacting support, it turns out that the permissions were 777 with your above. An alternative is to run the installation command with sudo, that is sudo ./install when on the matlab folder.
    – Diego-MX
    Jun 10, 2014 at 23:57
  • ah yes, that's usually the first thing you should try with permission issues; sorry, I wrongfully assumed you had already which is why I suggested 775 (implying executability not allowed as the numbers indicate read/write/execute)
    – ZekeDroid
    Jun 11, 2014 at 0:05
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I had the same problem as you. What I did was reinstalling Matlab, but changing the username for root, so I could start MATLAB from terminal with root privileges. Then, I changed permissions to my MATLAB folder and childs (/usr/local/MATLAB), to 775. Now I'm able to install any adds-on when launching MATLAB with sudo.

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