Matlab R2016a gives Unknown Graphics Driver Hardware error on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I installe student version of Matlab on both Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04. Both of these OS are installed on the same machine. I am able to open Matlab on Windows 10, but am getting the following error on Ubuntu. How can I fix it?

   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Segmentation violation detected at Fri Aug  8 37:40:49 2016
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Configuration:
  Crash Decoding      : Disabled
  Crash Mode          : continue (default)
  Current Graphics Driver: Unknown hardware 
  Current Visual      : 0x20 (class 4, depth 24)
  Default Encoding    : UTF-8
  GNU C Library       : 2.21 stable
  Host Name           : ShapeShifter
  MATLAB Architecture : glnxa64
  MATLAB Root         : /usr/local/MATLAB/R2015b
  MATLAB Version      : 8.6.0.267246 (R2015b)
  OpenGL              : hardware
  Operating System    : Linux 4.5.0-040500rc6-generic #201602281230 SMP Sun Feb 28 17:33:02 UTC 2016 x86_64
  Processor ID        : x86 Family 6 Model 78 Stepping 3, GenuineIntel
  Virtual Machine     : Java 1.7.0_60-b19 with Oracle Corporation Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM mixed mode
  Window System       : The X.Org Foundation (11703000), display :0

Fault Count: 1

Answer 1

This problem is related to an old library (libstdc++.so.6) shipped with Matlab. You need to force matlab to use the latest library provided by Ubuntu instead of this old one. Here are steps...

• Find the location where Matlab is installed on your machine (usually /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/)
• Using command line navigate to sys/os/glnxa64 within the installation folder. E.g.

praveen@praveen-Lenovo-G510:/usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64$ 

• type sudo mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.old to rename libstdc++.so.6

All these steps should solve the problem.