How to add MATLAB to the GNOME menu

Posted on Sep 21, 2010

For the installation instruction of MATLAB, refer to the following document.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MATLAB

To add MATLAB to the GNOME menu,

1. Get an icon:

sudo wget http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Matlab_Logo.png -O /usr/share/icons/matlab.png

2. Get the launcher file:

sudo wget 'https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MATLAB?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=matlab-r2010a.desktop' -O /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop

3. Edit the launcher file:

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop &

The contents of the launcher file (“matlab.desktop”) should be similar to what is written below. Modify ‘Name‘, ‘Exec‘, and ‘Categories‘ fields according to your configuration. Don’t forget to put ‘-desktop‘ at the end of the ‘Exec‘. Otherwise, MATLAB will show the splash screen, but will not start.

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Icon=/usr/share/icons/matlab.png
Name=MATLAB R2010b
Comment=Start MATLAB - The Language of Technical Computing
Exec=/usr/local/MATLAB/R2010b/bin/matlab -desktop
Categories=Development;Programming;

FYI. The ‘-desktop‘ option may not be necessary when MATLAB is executed from the command line.