HOWTO - Installing matlab on CentOS 6.4
Author: Jesse Oldershaw, UCL Biosciences IT
Updated 16 July 2013

The installation process in this document was followed on a Dell Optiplex 780 desktop PC with linux (CentOS 6.4) installed using the Biosciences automated installation process (kickstart) on 16 July 2013, which is also when Matlab was downloaded from the UCL download pages. Please follow these steps to install Matlab on a similarly installed machine:

Log in as root at the main log in screen (logging out first from your normal user account if necessary). 

Start firefox (in this case version 17.0.7 will have been pre-installed), go to swdb.ucl.ac.uk, search for matlab and select it. (UCL authentication required. Also note Matlab licensing restrictions eg it can't be installed by Masters students.)

Scroll down to version '2013a Mac' and download the ISO (which contains the software to install)and open the Installation document in a new tab. Note: the comments section says this is for Mac and Linux. When downloading the ISO in firefox, choose the option to save the ISO rather than use the archive mounter. Also note the license key, which you'll need later. 

When the download of the ISO is done, open a Terminal window, and do the following:

mkdir /mnt/matlab
mount -o loop /tmp/R2013a_UNIX.iso /mnt/matlab/
cd /mnt/matlab
./install

This should bring up the Installer window.

Follow the Installation document, starting at step 2.  

Accept the defaults until it asks for license file location, at which point go back to the swdb page that came up when you searched for matlab earlier, and scroll down to the section called 'License File for the UCL License manager' and download the file. It should put it in root's Downloads folder. Open a terminal window and copy the license file to a more permanent location like this:

cp Downloads/network11b.lic /etc

Now tell the matlab installer the license file is in /etc and then finish the installation using the default selections.
 
Log out as root and back in as yourself. Start matlab like this:

/usr/local/MATLAB/R2013a/bin/matlab