MATLAB Requirements
- MATLAB is compatible with not only Windows and Mac OS X, but also Linux. On the Windows platform, it is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista with Service Pack 2, Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Windows XP x64 Edition with Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2003 R2 with Service Pack 2.
You can also use MATLAB on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.6.4 Snow Leopard with Apple Java Update 2. The software is likely compatible with any Linux distribution using kernel version 2.6 or newer, plus glibc version 2.5 or newer. Developer MathWorks has verified compatibility with Debian 5, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Ubuntu 10.10, Red Hat Enterprise 5 and 6 and SUSe Linux Enterprise Desktop. - MATLAB requires 1GB of RAM regardless of operating system, but MathWorks recommends 2GB for better performance. Having at least 2GB of RAM is especially important for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users. These operating systems use more memory than previous versions, leaving less RAM available for software. Installing more memory in a computer is often the cheapest way to significantly improve speed.
- MATLAB for Windows and Linux will run on any x86 Intel or AMD processor, so long as it supports the SSE2 instruction set. Intel and AMD introduced this technology on their processors in 2000 and 2003, respectively. Any computer that meets the memory requirement likely has an SSE2 processor. Mac users must have an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU or better. Note that all Intel Macs support SSE2.
- The MATLAB program by itself only takes up 1GB of space, but you should have 3 to 4GB free on your hard disk for additional components. The software takes up the same amount of space no matter what operating system you use.
Some types of MATLAB licenses require you to run a FLEXnet 11.9 server for ownership verification. This software comes with MATLAB, but you must have an Internet connection supporting TCP/IP to run the license server.
