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I have Matlab installed under /home/fer/Matlab, with the main exec file being /home/fer/Matlab/R2014b/bin/matlab. There is something weird with it and it only works if I open it with the terminal using sudo. If I run it without sudo it throws a permission error and closes (I guess it's reading somewhere).

Anyway, I was trying to create a .desktop file to be able to open it from the menu, and because it needs to run under sudo, in the exec line I wrote:

Exec=gksudo -u root /home/fer/Matlab/R2014b/bin/matlab

When I click on the shortcut, it asks me for my password, then the Matlab splash appears, then closes, and nothing happens. This looks a lot like a problem with Matlab itself, but am I doing it right with the exec line of the .desktop file? Do I need to add anything else? If a program requires a terminal to run from, is there anyway I can emulate one from the desktop file?

EDIT: As asked in comments: whoami outputs fer and all files and subdirectories in Matlab/R2014b are owned by user fer and group fer. The error is written in a Matlab window, saying tht there is not write permission on /home/fer/.matlab/R2014b/temp0x... I will try to look into that directory.

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  • You should not have to start Matlab as root. What error messages are issued when you start it as a normal user and Please post the output of this command in your question: ls -la /home/user/Matlab – A.B. Apr 19 '15 at 10:50
  • Not directly to your question, but you may omit the-u root argument of gksudo, as it runs the following executable as root by default, if no user is specified. – Byte Commander♦ Apr 19 '15 at 10:56
  • When you run Matlab in the terminal without sudo, do you get any error messages like "permission denied on /path/to/file"? That would be helpful to see what it wants to access and changing your user account's permissions to be able to access this file or directory. – Byte Commander♦ Apr 19 '15 at 10:59
  • Please post the output of this command in your question: whoami and groups. – A.B. Apr 19 '15 at 10:59
  • Can you put the executable in / ? – TheWanderer Apr 19 '15 at 12:56
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Cut out and reworded from @MyUserIsThis' edits to his question:

Ok, I chowned recursively the whole directory /home/<user>/.matlab so I would have permissions to write on it and it was fixed.

BTW, in case someone else runs into this, the exec line of the desktop file should include the option -desktop for the script to work properly when not called from the terminal:

Exec=/home/<user>/Matlab/R2014b/bin/matlab -desktop
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  • @MyUserIsThis Please accept this answer, because AskUbuntu is a Q&A site which implies that if a question is solved, it should have an accepted answer. If you want to add something, feel free to edit it - it's a community wiki which means every user my contribute to it. – Byte Commander♦ Apr 19 '15 at 14:03

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