Arch Linux User Repository

TODO:

1. Figure out the users and permissions. Currently, /opt/MATLAB/${_release} has 777 permissions, which is obviously undesired. It might be better to create a user group and require users to manually add themselves to it for security reasons.

2. Improve the installer. For example, the current inotify watcher spams stdout and does not account for the end of the download/installation or the width of the terminal, which results in flaky output.

3. Figure out the dependencies. The list of Debian/RHEL dependencies is public, but it includes some seemingly unneeded packages. This might be because they are required by dependent products/add-ons. Additionally, the current logic for removing bundled dependencies should probably be rewritten. Maintaining an exhaustive list for a single release is very difficult, and these components change without notice. Moreover, the current approach may go against the Arch KISS philosophy. Ideally, we should remove only the problematic components like Qt, XCB, libtiff, gcc-libs, fontconfig, etc.

4. Add auto-discovery for packages written for MATLAB. My plan was to use /usr/lib/MATLAB/${_release} for release-specific modules and /usr/lib/MATLAB/common for shared (mostly architecture-independent) packages. However, load order matters, and "common" modules need to specify which releases they are compatible with. This means we need to implement our own logic for discovering and loading these, likely via hooks, shell scripts, and configuration files (perhaps TOML could work?).

5. Fix the Python components. python-matlabengine does install the Python components built against the version of Python shipped by Arch. However, some proprietary CPython components are not included and are built against ancient Python versions. This likely requires version spoofing or some alternative approach.

6. Write and upload packages for previous MATLAB releases. It is entirely possible to have multiple releases installed simultaneously. I have a few of these packages myself, but they are drafts and not suitable for upload to the AUR.

7. Write and upload packages for MATLAB-dependent add-ons and products. When installing MATLAB required user intervention for source access, it was acceptable to break reproducibility and manually specify required products for installation. Now that we use MPM, it would be better to separate products into individual packages. These packages would install themselves and their dependencies into a specific location, then use appdata to install only the component's files. The problem is that MATLAB often includes conflicting files that need to be combined or overwritten. Obviously, we can't allow that, so a hook must be implemented to, for example, combine *.combine@matlab-simulink and replace *.replace@matlab-documentation files with backups. Needless to say, this is challenging to implement, so the previous approach (having users specify the product list) might still be preferred.

8. Write and upload the matlab-runtime package. I have a draft, but the problem with this package is that it installs the runtime for every available product. Ideally, for source-built packages, we would want to makedepend on matlab-$product and depend on matlab-$product-runtime. However, this is not possible without splitting the runtime packages, which poses the challenges described above. I’ll try my best to revisit this sometime later.

@aoneko, @Reexys, please read the post-installation instructions. If you've lost them, you can find the same information here.

The .desktop file should have the -desktop argument otherwise Matlab just opens a shell.

See matlab -help: "Allow the MATLAB desktop to be started by a process without a controlling terminal. This is usually a required command line argument when attempting to start MATLAB from a window manager menu or desktop icon."

@tsetsee_yugi you need to have in the PKGBUILD directory the files listed in Sources before running makepkg. If you haven't already done so, please read the installation instructions in the README.

Optional dependencies for matlab-meta cuda [installed] java-runtime: Java support [installed] zsh [installed] openal: for Orbisnap [installed] openssl-1.0: needed by MATLAB Client for MATLAB Production Server [installed] python2: needed by MATLAB Client for MATLAB Production Server ==> Making package: matlab 9.13.0.2049777-3 (Fri 23 Dec 2022 03:24:52 PM +08) ==> Retrieving sources... ==> ERROR: matlab.tar was not found in the build directory and is not a URL. error: failed to download sources for 'matlab-9.13.0.2049777-3': error: packages failed to build: matlab-9.13.0.2049777-3

If you have the error: "Unable to open this file in the current system configuration", the error can be fixed by setting aside the libfreetype.so.6 in <matlab_root>/bin/glnxa64/. You may run the following command:

cd <matlab_root>/bin/glnxa64/ mv libfreetype.so.6 libfreetype.so.6.old

Last current version (R2022b) may not work correctly, so you can use R2022a instead. Also, for issues like: "Unable to launch the MATLABWindow application. The exit code was: 127" or "symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so.0: undefined symbol: FT_Get_Transform" , follow this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MATLAB#Unable_to_launch_the_MATLABWindow_application.

If you want to know what problems gave me R2022b, other than the "classic" symbol lookup error that is fixable, it gave to me:

"$ ./matlab MATLAB is selecting SOFTWARE OPENGL rendering. [allexj@Archy bin]$ terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::runtime_error' what(): Failed to launch web window with error: Unable to launch the MATLABWindow application. The exit code was: 1 /home/allexj/Desktop/matlab/bin/glnxa64/MathWorksProductAuthorizer.sh: line 14: 292290 Aborted (core dumped) $BINDIR/MathWorksProductAuthorizer $@"

and "$ ./glnxa64/MATLABWindow ./glnxa64/MATLABWindow: /home/allexj/Desktop/matlab/bin/glnxa64/libtiff.so.5: version `LIBTIFF_4.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0)"

@scondon the -r flag removes the dependencies you installed to build the package. I was talking about the -R flag, which repackages without rebuilding: if you use that flag, you don't run the installer, the $srcdir/build directory is never created, so mv can't find the FreeType files. I don't think it's a PKGBUILD issue nor a tar one, at least following the instructions on the README or running the install.sh script on a clean directory with the required files only. Other than telling you to watch what makepkg does step by step, I don't know what else to say at the moment, I'm sorry.

Maybe we can talk on a GitHub issue, so that it's public, and then we post here what we have found. I won't be able to respond instantaneously, though.

Have tried to build but am getting the same error as @wu2305 with mv: cannot stat libfreetype.so.* file. Have tried with the -r flag and without. With the -r flag, it contains bin/glnxa64/ but this directory is then empty. Is this likely a PKGBUILD issue or a mistake with the tar file?

Hi, I'm tackling the problem with the add-ons installation, where the installer can't write to /usr/local/MATLAB/R2022b. I think we should avoid manual chmods or chowns, as it would be easy to mess up with the permissions, so I created a matlab group with rwx permissions, which owns the tree starting at /usr/local/MATLAB/R2022b. The PKGBUILD sets up the correct permissions, so after installing MATLAB, you should just add yourself to that group, re-login and then you should be able to install add-ons. So far I'm able to start the installer, download the add-on archive, but when I get to Performing post-installation tasks. This may take a few minutes..., an error occurs, and the installer logs End - Unsuccessful Exception: java.lang.InterruptedException without further information.

If anyone wants to help me resolve this issue, here is the repo: https://github.com/Rubo3/matlab-aur/tree/addons.

Hi @wu2305, are you using the latest revision of the PKGBUILD? Are you running makepkg with or without the --repackage or -R flag? Do you have the /home/wu2305/repos/matlab/pkg/matlab/usr/local/MATLAB/R2022b/backup directory? If yes, does it contain the bin/glnxa64 directory? What are its contents?

I've tried the PKGBUILD and I met the errors following: mv: cannot stat '/home/wu2305/repos/matlab/pkg/matlab/usr/local/MATLAB/R2022b/bin/glnxa64/libfreetype.so.*': No such file or directory Have I missed some critical steps or some minor problems in PKGBUILD lead to this error? I'm looking forward to your reply