I have a Debian OS and just installed Matlab under it.
The installation place is /user/local/Matlab7/
The installation is finished and I can use it. BUt the problem is that I can only start it at /user/local/Matlab7/bin by typing ./matlab
I hope I can run this command at anywhere.
SO I tried to modified the .bash_profile file under my home directory.
And the file looks like:

# ~/.bash_profile: executed by bash(1) for login shells.
# see /usr/share/doc/bash/examples/startup-files for examples.
# the files are located in the bash-doc package.

umask 022


PATH=$PATH:/user/local/matlab7/bin

# the rest of this file is commented out.

# include .bashrc if it exists

#if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
# source ~/.bashrc
#fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d ~/bin ] ; then
PATH=~/bin:"${PATH}"
fi

# do the same with MANPATH
#if [ -d ~/man ]; then
# MANPATH=~/man:"${MANPATH}"
#fi

I restart my box but this doesnot work.
How can I do this? Thanks

did you try "/usr/local/matlab7" instead of "/user/local/matlab7" ?