MATLAB on openSUSE Leap 16.0 – installation workaround and runtime issues

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1

I’m currently trying to install and run MATLAB on openSUSE Leap 16.0, which is not yet officially supported by MathWorks:
https://se.mathworks.com/support/requirements/matlab-linux.html

Since SLES 15 (currently supported) will eventually be replaced by SLES 16, I expect proper support to arrive in the future. In the meantime, I’d like to document what works and what does not, and hopefully gather input from others.

  1. Installer crash

Running the MATLAB installer (tested with R2026a, likely affecting earlier versions as well) results in a segmentation fault:

./install
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

A similar issue has been reported here:
https://se.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/2180762-matlab-installer-for-version-2025b-on-linux-segfaults-on-opensuse-16-0

  1. Workaround for installation

The installation completes successfully when using:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libgnutls.so.30 ./install

This workaround was reported here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/1s0xqdm/matlab_support_in_2026/

  1. Runtime behavior
  • MATLAB GUI starts correctly as a normal user
  • MATLAB fails to start when run as root

When launched as root, the MathWorks Crash Reporter appears with a dump file such as:

/root/.MathWorks/.../crash_reports/completed/<id>.dmp
  1. Current status

I have not yet fully mapped out which features work and which do not under Leap 16.0.

I will report this to MathWorks, but any insights or workarounds from the community would be very helpful.

2

Perhaps you could try installing a Docker container using Podman.

After a quick search, it seems to me that this option is favoured by many users. Probably because it’s the simplest and quickest option for this proprietary software.

Maybe, you could use Gnu Octave or Sage, unless you are required to use Matlab.

Good courage to you.

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