HowTo: Run Mathematica 7 and Matlab R2008a as a regular, unprivileged user

[sarang]

Update (May 24, 2009):
It appears that there is no need for performing these steps to get Mathematica 7 and Matlab to run well on Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04

What Works:
Running Mathematica 7 and Matlab R2008a with GUI under Gnome, KDE and also under tiling window managers like 'Awesome Window Manager'.

What Doesn't Work:
Everything seems to be working properly now.

Tested on:
Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex with sun-java6-jre
Debian 5 Lenny with sun-java6-jre

Steps

If you have previously had the problem of Java windows appearing as gray rectangles instead of actual windows and have solved it by
export AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit undo that change. That is, make sure that the environment variable AWT_TOOLKIT is not set.
Install the dwm-tools package to make Java stop misbehaving: sudo apt-get install dwm-tools
Create the file /etc/init.d/matlab_mathematica_env and paste into it the following contents:

#!/bin/bash

# Helps for tiling window managers
correct_wm_name ()
{
wmname LG3D
}

mount_dev_pts ()
{
if [ ! -e /dev/pts ]
then
echo "Creating mountpoint /dev/pts..."
mkdir /dev/pts
fi

if [ "$(mount | grep -P ^.*/dev/pts.*$)" == "" ]
then
echo "/dev/pts was not mounted before. Attempting mount..."
mount -t devpts -o users,dev devpts /dev/pts
fi
}


mount_dev_shm ()
{
if [ ! -e /dev/shm ]
then
echo "Creating mountpoint /dev/shm..."
mkdir /dev/shm
fi


if [ "$(mount | grep -P ^.*/dev/shm.*$)" == "" ]
then
echo "/dev/shm was not mounted before. Attempting mount..."
mount -t tmpfs -o users,dev tmpfs /dev/shm
fi
}

umount_dev_pts ()
{
if [ "$(mount | grep -P ^.*/dev/pts.*$)" != "" ]
then
echo "/dev/pts was mounted before. Attempting unmount..."
umount /dev/pts
fi
}

umount_dev_shm ()
{
if [ "$(mount | grep -P ^.*/dev/shm.*$)" != "" ]
then
echo "/dev/shm was mounted before. Attempting unmount..."
umount /dev/shm
fi
}


if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ]
then
echo "You need to run this script as root."
echo "Hint: use sudo"
exit 1
fi


case "$1" in
start)
echo "Correcting WM name..."
correct_wm_name
echo "Finished correcting WM name."
echo "Mounting tmpfs to /dev/shm..."
mount_dev_shm
echo "Finished mounting /dev/shm."
echo "Mounting devpts to /dev/pts..."
mount_dev_pts
echo "Finished mounting /dev/pts."
;;
stop)

echo "Unmounting /dev/pts..."
umount_dev_pts
echo "Finished unmounting /dev/pts."
echo "Unmounting /dev/shm..."
umount_dev_shm
echo "Finished unmounting /dev/shm."
;;
restart|force-reload)
$0 stop
$0 start
;;
status)
mount
;;
*)
N=/etc/init.d/matlab_mathematica_env
# echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload|status}" >&2
echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0

Make it executable by running sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/matlab_mathematica_env
Add it to multi-user run-levels by running sudo update-rc.d matlab_mathematica_env defaults
Reboot or run sudo /etc/init.d/matlab_mathematica_env start
Launch Mathematica and Matlab like any other program and they should work.


Troubleshooting

If you see only gray rectangles instead of Java windows even after following all the above steps, your window manager name as seen by Java has not been corrected. Just open a terminal and run wmname LG3D and all Java windows opened after that should open just fine.