Can Matlab Home run on a Persistent Live Ubuntu USB Stick Operating System?
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James Prewitt
on 10 Dec 2023
Commented: James Prewitt
on 15 Dec 2023
I anticipate moving from my MS Windows 10 OS to a Ubuntu LTS OS. In preparation for that, I am evaluating several software packages on a "Persistent Live Ubuntu LTS USB Stick Operating System". I have a Matlab Home license on my Windows 10 OS. Can I install and run my Home license on the Ubuntu USB OS?
Once I get all of the apps I need running on the Ubuntu USB OS, I will then replace the Windows 10 OS with the Ubuntu OS. I am using the same HP ZBook for both OSs. (Not at the same time, obviously.) When Microsoft stops supporting Windows 10, I will make the change. My current ZBook will not support Windows 11.
Thanks in advance for your experience and your help.
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Walter Roberson
on 10 Dec 2023
It is certainly possible to install MATLAB onto a removable drive, whether that drive is spinning rust, or SSD, or USB keychain drive.
If this were MacOS you were working with, then the minor issue is that when you install onto a non-default volume, the file associations are not necessarily going to be set up correctly, so to have a particular kind of file (such as .m file) automatically open in MATLAB, you might need to configure "Open with" "from now on" against the application.
If this were Windows you were working with, then file associations commonly get messed up when you install onto a drive other than C:. Oh yes, and on Windows it's pretty common for applications to expect to be able to find lots of temporary space on C: even if they are installed to a different drive, so if you were trying to configure a minimal nearly-readonly boot stick then you can run into unexpected temporary space issues
On all operating systems, you have the issue that the hardware identifiers that MATLAB looks at for licensing purposes do not include information about non-boot drives. Windows (only) can use the serial number of the boot drive (which is not necessarily the built-in harddrive or built-in SSD), but MacOS and Linux cannot do that. This doesn't mean that you cannot store the files on an external drive: it means that you cannot use an external drive as a portable MATLAB that you move between different systems.
The use-case you are describing involves always booting off of the same ZBook, and the MAC addresses of the ZBook can be the hardware keys for MATLAB purposes, so you should be fine for your purposes.
On all operating systems, you have the issue that the directories that MATLAB looks in for the user-specific license files will not typically include external non-boot drives unless you have configured the user home directories to live on the external drives. A Home license is implemented as a user-specific license file. MATLAB looks for DEMO and "dedicated host" and network licenses inside the MATLAB installation directories.
The use-case you are describing involves you booting from the USB drive, in which case your home directory is fairly likely on the same USB drive, so MATLAB would look in your ~/.matlab directory for license files (on Linux -- MacOS and Windows look in different places), so as long as your hardware identifiers matched (as described above) then you should be fine.
The issue about location of license files is that some people want to configure USB sticks (or equivalent) as portable MATLAB installations that they can move from machine to machine. I described above that there are hardware identifier issues that affect that, but in such a case there is also the issue that MATLAB is unlikely to know to look on the external drive for the per-user license files. (But this should not affect your particular use)
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