Can Matlab Home run on a Persistent Live Ubuntu USB Stick Operating System?

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.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

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)

[James Prewitt]

Oops, I entered my comment in the wrong area.

I did not see this "Comments" field.

Should i re-enter what I put into the Answer field here?

[James Prewitt]

I repeated my comment here...

Thank you very much for the details of your explanation.

I do believe that my Matlab/Simulink applications will work on the Ubuntu USB OS.

I have a couple of related comments/questions before I actually try the procedure::

I copied the following from the Mathworks site:

"You are permitted to install MATLAB Student and Home on up to two computers and you may transfer a MATLAB Student or Home license up to two times per year. MATLAB Student and Home must be deactivated before it can be transferred to a new machine."

I assume this would be considered another computer, even though it is the same computer hardware.

Is this correct?

I also assume that I would need to deactivate my license on the Windows 10 OS and then install and activate it on the Ubuntu USB OS. This would be cosidered a single transfer.

Is this correct?

The transfer limit of 2 times a year issue: is it within a calendar year or 12 months or what?

If I have issues getting it to run on the Ubuntu USB OS, will it be considered a "transfer" to reactivate the one I currently have on the Windows 10 OS?

Thanks again for the explanations and the associated details.

[Walter Roberson]

I assume this would be considered another computer, even though it is the same computer hardware.

No, as far as Mathworks licensing policy is concerned, using dual (or multiple) boot on the same host counts as only one license, and does not require a transfer.

Users do not license per operating system used. You purchased the Home license, and you are entitled to use it on one computer no matter what operating system you use on the computer. The combination of user + host is what is licensed, not user + host + operating system.

When you installed on Windows, there was the possibility that the hardware information that got locked against was the serial number of the hard drive. In my post above I said "the boot drive", but now I am no longer sure about that... it might possibly the "the first drive enumerated by the hardware". Which is the first drive enumerated by the hardware? That might depend upon the details of the BIOS, and details such as which IRQ configured if there are multiple devices on the same controller. But if it did not lock in against a drive serial number, then it would have recorded some Media Access Control (MAC) address, such as the hardware address configured for your ethernet interface.

MATLAB for MacOS and Linux never lock against the hard drives, only against MAC address. Which devices they record the MAC from can start to get messy on systems such as MacBook Air which have no built-in ethernet controllers.

Historically, the exact device names preferred for MacOS and for Linux have changed over time. And MATLAB for Linux responded by now recording a whole bunch of device MACs against the license, and permitting the user to use the license if any of the recorded MACs appear in the current hardware inventory.

So... if your MATLAB license got recorded against your drive serial number instead of against a MAC address, you might need some assistance from Mathworks Support to generate a new license that does not "use up" one of your transfers. But as a matter of policy, you can request that if you need to. You might not need to -- it might have already recorded enough MACs against your license that it might already recognize that it is the same host.

is it within a calendar year or 12 months or what?

Yes, it is within 12 consecutive months, a rolling window. But by policy that does not apply to your case of installing on the same host.

[James Prewitt]

Thank you very much.

The first drive reported by the Ubuntu system is the large SSD drive that the Windows 10 runs on. The second drive reported is where Ubuntu will be booted from.

Until I try it, I will not know for sure.

However, it will be sometime next week before I will be able to try it.

Do you want me to go ahead and "Accept" your solution or wait till I try it?

I am OK with either way.

[Walter Roberson]

I suggest you look at https://www.mathworks.com/mwaccount/?s_tid=gn_myac and click on your license, then on the Install and Activate tab. You should see a list of one or more "Activation Label" for your license, with HostID for each label. The HostID will either be a MAC address or else a disk serial number. Disk serial number is used only for Windows, and Windows is also happy to use MAC address. If a disk serial number is what shows up then you might end up needing to get Mathworks Support involved to avoid the installation being called a transfer.

[James Prewitt]

Been on the run today. Will probably be late tonight or tomorrow before I get to comply with your suggestion.

Will try and locate both MAC address, and disk serial number to have info available.

Thanks again...

[James Prewitt]

Does not appear to be either MAC Address or SSD Serial Number.

Entered MathWorks Service request. Will provide feeback later.

[James Prewitt]

It appears I need to "deactivate" the license on the MSWindows 10 machine.

Then download/install on the Ubuntu USB.

I have obtained the HostID from the current license.

Although, as I said above, it does not match either MAC Add or SSD Serial Number.

I will wait to hear from the Service Request I submitted before trying to install.

Meanwhile, I will Accept your answer.

Is there any way I can let you know the details of the installation later?

I will wait for a reply before I hit Accept.

[James Prewitt]

I saw a similar question:

"

is it ok to install matlab on 3 operating systems only 2 of those operating systems is on one machine ?

"

The answer to this was "yes" however the above refers to a dual dual boot machine.

However, in that case, it generally booting from a single hard drive.

In my case the Ubuntu OS is on a USB drive.

If I do not get a reply from you by tomorrow morning, Thursday, I will hit the Accept button.

Again, I do appreciate all of the help you have given me on this question.

[Walter Roberson]

Is there any way I can let you know the details of the installation later?

Yes; if you need to just enter the details here and I will get notified.

[James Prewitt]

Will do...

[James Prewitt]

Discovered that the HostID IS associated with the SSD drive

I first used the following command: "wmic diskdrive get model,serialNumber,size,mediaType".

It gave me serial number info that did not match the HostID

However, when I used the command: "vol c:"

It did give me a number that matched with the HostID.

Stll waiting on some coment from MathWorks on installation.

[James Prewitt]

Well, I finally heard from MathWorks. They said they thought it should be OK.

I was still a little skeptical, but I proceded to download the linux installer and

follow the steps I found in one of the relatively new links I found from a google search

using the string:

"how to install matlab on ubuntu 22.04"

There was one key item that was missing in some of the procedures.

You need to create the target directory BEFORE running the "install" script.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/MATLAB/R2023b/

The first time I tried to install, I did not have the directory created.

The script just kept on spinning...

I killed the install script and then created the target directory.

The next time I ran the install script, I had to use my MathWorks account

information and feed it some other basic install info and...

After a LONG time, it completed successfully.

For some reason, even after indicating its completion, I waited and ...

I finally used "matlab &" command and the gui appeared as expected.

The "install" script still did not terminate.

I killed the install script with Ctl-C.

I exited matlab and then fired it up again and created a basic mFiles

to plot some points.

It was a very simple test, but I was still pleasantly surprised at the performance.

Everything seems to work OK.

I only installed R2023b.

I then Shutdown matlab and "restarted" the Ubuntu USB system.

When the UBUNTU came back up, I verified that matlab still behaved as expected.

So...IT WAS A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT!!!

The zipFile, the unzipFolder, and the installed R2023b directories all together gobbled

up about 4.5 GB. I can recover some by removing the zipFile and the unzipFolder.

I can give you the actual link to the procedure I used if you are interested.

I just used the basic portion of the procedure.

Thank you very much for your help.