Linux on Macbook Pro for Matlab
By sebbesen at Tue, Jun 6 2006 11:07am |
As Matlab does not run natively on my MacBook Pro, I was considering making a dual-boot system i.e. Mac OS X and Linux, and run Matlab under Linux on my Mac until Matlab goes Universal Binary.
Is this possible?
Best regards,
Soren Ebbesen
ETH Zürich
Try Matlab with Parallels first
You might want to install Linux on your system using Parallels and see how that performs for you.
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/
Since parallels uses virtualization (as opposed to emulation which is what virtual PC used) it's very fast. This would save you the hassle of partitioning your drive.
Thank you! Would you have
Thank you! Would you have any idea what Linux distribution runs best on the MacBook Pro in terms of hardware support?
Will any distribution work, or do I need a special Intel-Mac edition?
I have little experience but a good impression of SUSE Linux. I was hoping it could run on the MacBook Pro...
Use Ubuntu
In my opinion the best Linux distribution for newbies is Ubuntu. It's Debian-based and it will run just fine under parallels.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
Matlab in terminal
Why running MATLAB in Linux? You can run it in the terminal of OSX :-)!!
Matlab runs great with Parallels and Ubuntu
Ubuntu and Matlab install and run flawlessly (and fast!) under Parallels. No problems so far, though you may want to install more RAM if your Matlab sessions are memory-intensive
Yeah, I'm acutally doing
Yeah, I'm acutally doing that at the moment, but it's quite slow as it runs under Rosetta!
how can it be slow?
slow?
without the java machine it's nice to use I guess ;-)
Well, it's slow!
I just ran the "bench" command in Matlab which proves that Matlab under rosetta is pretty slow compared to what the hardware specs imply.
>> bench
ans =
2.3309 1.2980 1.8799 9.1751 4.5839 3.6296
>> mean(ans)
ans =
3.8162
My computer is a MacBook Pro 1.83 GHz with 1.5 GB memory. I also have a goldfish called fluffy, but that's not important right now.
matlab and mac pro
i need to use matlab on my new macbook
are you sure that's possible?
what can i do?
thank you
How did it work?
I have been reading the discussion regarding Intel-chip macs, Matlab, and then the discussion of using Parallels as an emulator.
I was just wondering how it worked using Ubuntu (as described by the others) and Matlab.
--Christian
Matlab through terminal
Install matlab. Then instead of starting matlab using the matlab icon, you should open terminal. Make sure you are in your /Applications/MATLAB72/bin folder. Then type:
./matlab -nojvm -display :0.0
Matlab and Ubuntu
I never came around to try it out. My university semester is over so I don't need Matlab until the winter-term. As rumours have it, Matlab should be running natively on Intel Macs over the summer, so I will wait paitently for this to happen.
MATLAB will not be native on Intel Mac for R2006b
http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/data/1-25L41S.html?solution=1-25L41S
From the MathWorks website:
MATLAB 7.1 (R14SP3) and 7.2 (2006a) are not supported on Intel-based Mac (Rosetta) machines. MATLAB R2006b will also not be supported on Intel-based Mac machines.
The MathWorks does plan to support Intel-based Macs. However, we do not yet have an estimated release date for this support.
I also want to use matlab
I also want to use matlab with a MacBook. However, trying the above my computer told me that a 'bus error' was detected. What does that mean?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bus error detected at Mon Jul 3 13:04:23 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Configuration:
MATLAB Version: 7.0.0.19901 (R14)
Operating System: Darwin 8.7.1 Darwin Kernel Version 8.7.1: Wed Jun 7 16:19:56 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.9.72.obj~2/RELEASE_I386 Power Macintosh
Window System: The XFree86 Project, Inc (40400000), display :0.0
Current Visual: 0x22 (class 4, depth 24)
Virtual Machine: Java is not enabled
Default Charset: US-ASCII
r0 = 00001f02 r8 = 00000000 r16 = 92e7fd0c r24 = ebebebeb
r1 = 00000001 r9 = 00000000 r17 = ebebebeb r25 = ebebebeb
r2 = 0000004d r10 = bfffde60 r18 = ebebebeb r26 = ebebebeb
r3 = 00000018 r11 = bfffede0 r19 = ebebebeb r27 = ebebebeb
r4 = 0479227c r12 = 00000000 r20 = ebebebeb r28 = ebebebeb
r5 = 00000000 r13 = 00001f02 r21 = ebebebeb r29 = ebebebeb
r6 = 00000000 r14 = 92e7fd14 r22 = ebebebeb r30 = ebebebeb
r7 = 00000000 r15 = 00000000 r23 = ebebebeb r31 = ebebebeb
cr = ebebebeb lr = ebebebeb xer = ebebebeb ctr = ebebebeb
vrsave = ebebebeb
Stack Trace:
Can anybody post here some
Can anybody post here some results of the bench command, on Linux/Windows Matlab R13/R14, running under Parallels Desktop on a MacBook/MacBookPro? Thanks!
Suse 10.0 works fine with Parallels
For the record, I'm running Suse 10.0 under Parallels on my 2.16 GHz Macbook Pro (with 2 GB RAM) and it runs perfectly.
Matlab/WinXP/Parallels/Macbook bench
Here are the results of bench(10) on a Macbook 2.0 GHz with 1gb RAM running Parallels workstation release version with 512mb RAM dedicated to a Win XP SP2 guest machine, running Matlab R14SP3:
0.9603 0.5442 0.2580 0.6767 1.0446 1.4308
0.9415 0.4961 0.2190 0.5378 0.8163 1.1363
0.9506 0.4969 0.1741 0.6201 0.8568 1.0606
0.8318 0.5131 0.2138 0.5609 0.7934 1.1073
1.0924 0.4551 0.2300 0.6576 0.9208 1.1135
0.9850 0.5127 0.2366 0.7270 0.8831 1.2076
1.1555 0.5275 0.2069 0.7126 0.9700 1.2717
0.9956 0.5888 0.2580 0.6433 0.9475 1.2070
0.9738 0.5957 0.1974 0.7116 0.8850 1.2009
1.0086 0.5517 0.1846 0.6195 0.8638 1.0724
Quite impressive
That's quite impressive. Especially compared to my benchmarks running Matlab under Rosetta (look further down on this page).
Matlab on Parallels-Linux
Did anyone encounter license problems when trying to run Matlab on a Parallels-Linux setup?
I've got Parallels running on my Macbook with a Debian (sarge) VM installed. I had no trouble installing Matlab and am using a license.dat file I know to be valid.
My license is a "defined user" license, so should be portable to the VM.
I'm getting the following error from MLM:
Invalid license key (inconsistent authentication code).
This sort of error typically occurs if you inadvertently put a hard return in a passcode INCREMENT line at the wrong place. I've checked the file pretty closely, and can't find the defect. My MLM.opt file looks ok too.
Any ideas?
Eric
Use scipy!
Instead of waiting that a commercial product becomes universal (why is that so difficult for them to compile in universal mode?) you might just try scipy, an *open source* computing environment which is
- more reactive (has been universal from day one)
- more elegant (uses python)
- faster (way easier to extend with C or FORTRAN than matlab)
Matlab is available for Intel-based macs
Matlab 2007a supports intel-based macs (there are some java issues, though). Regardless, scipy is certainly worth looking into.
Here are my bench(10) results, by the way -- running 2007a on a MBP15/2.33Ghz/2GB
0.1945 0.4105 0.3340 1.3634 1.0260 0.3828
0.1434 0.3112 0.2628 1.2400 0.7992 0.3016
0.1410 0.3112 0.2521 1.2736 0.8339 0.2862
0.1406 0.3124 0.2528 1.2819 0.7993 0.3047
0.1397 0.3094 0.2526 1.2799 0.7970 0.2876
0.1407 0.3112 0.2526 1.2766 0.8180 0.2994
0.1421 0.3118 0.2526 1.2793 0.7997 0.2883
0.1409 0.3113 0.2524 1.2823 0.7989 0.3042
0.1424 0.3101 0.2533 1.2834 0.8092 0.3085
0.1406 0.3103 0.2524 1.2799 0.8308 0.2815
scipy tutorial
Anyone fancy writing a tutorial on scipy?
scipy tutorial
I would like to second this request!
python with numpy/scipy are
python with numpy/scipy are well worth the time to learn how to use. Everything installs very easily on a mac. The user community is friendly, helpful and respectful. All very good reasons to try out this combination for scientific programming.
However, I have found that it is difficult to obtain the same level of functionality and polish as Matlab. You may find yourself spending _alot_ of time trying to find other scientific packages in order to implement a technique that is easily available in Matlab.
The plotting routines require an additional package (matplotlib) that lacks the easy usability of Matlab and does not provide the same level of quality.
My last basic project involved installing several other python packages, all free and all maintained by different groups with different update schedules. One particular package used interpreted code whereas Matlab used compiled code. Matlab was about 30 times faster as a result (2 hours on Matlab vs. 60 hours with python).
And a final note, your python code may not work in windows, since the external packages may not have an easily installable windows binary of the same version as on your mac.
These are just small warnings. I found, in the end, that I'd rather spend the money on Matlab than the time trying to obtain Matlab functionality, quality and speed with free software. And failing in the end anyway.
BTW, I don't work for the Mathworks. :)
Need full-blown Matlab?
I assume you need full-blown Matlab, but if not there is a Matlab-compatible(-ish) open-source application called FreeMat that might be worth checking out.
I know very little about Matlab, so it may not be what you need. I can't find the reference right now, but I believe the author says it combines much of Matlab with a bit of IDL. The PDF manual is about 600 pages, and it includes a boatload of functions, and it has a nice interface as well.
The latest version is 3.5, I believe.
MATLAB for the Mac is 32bit
This is not much of a revelation (the information is available for all to see
here), but, at present, Matlab on the Mac is a 32bit application. I hope that version 2008a would see the introduction of a 64bit version.
I have a few dual boot
I have a few dual boot machines some hp desktops along with macs all on my home network along with some storage servers. I'd make it dual boot just so you at least have linux as an option.
MatLab on the Mac
Why don't you try Octave (Free as in beer) which can be installed via Macports (the old Darwinports), it is supposed to be almost 100% compatible with matlab source code. It may lack the fancy GUI but it is free!!
Good Luck!
HdR