Installed MATLAB in /home/c/Desktop/MATLAB But Cannot ACCESS it
 

How do I start my matlab?

I typed matlab in the terminal but it says command not found.

In windows, a shortcut icon would have been created for me. This is obviously not for linux.

What should I do to start my application?

My matlab is installed in: /home/c/Desktop/MATLAB

Look in the folder it's installed to for a binary file of some sort. A lot of times people will put a .run or a .sh file in the folder that you can execute. If there's a Readme check that out.

You did make sure to grab the Linux version right? Windows .exe files will not execute in Linux without special software.

Is the directory containing the executable in your PATH? If it isn't (and you're not using the full path to it), you'll get the "command not found" error.

The installation process at some point asks you if you want to create symbolic links to the matlab executable in /usr/local/bin. Maybe you didn't notice that, but you can always create them later as root:

/home/c/Desktop/MATLAB/bin/matlab

Yup. Double clicking on this works.

can you tell me what the mex file does? I am curious.

At least I got my matlab working.

Also, if I create symbolic links, will a shortcut automatically appear just like windows?

Instead of creating a symbolic link you can create a launcher on your Desktop that points to the executable. Just right click your desktop and click "Create Launcher". I'm not sure if that functionality is still there depending on what version of Ubuntu you're running. I'm still using Gnome 2 in Debian. You could make a symbolic link and it should work just fine, but by making a "Launcher" you could set your own icon and everything, :-)

Creating the symbolic links in /usr/local/bin just makes matlab available to all the users that have /usr/local/bin on their PATH (all the users by default). However it has nothing to do with desktop/panel shortcuts. You have to create them as dudeman41465 suggested. In the newly created launcher set the Executable/Application to setsid and the command line arguments to /usr/local/bin/matlab -desktop. This is the method suggested by Mathworks support.

Regarding mex it is an utility that allows you to interface C/C++ or Fortran routines to Matlab. You can think at it as a compiler where the final executable is a matlab command (mex file). You can run the mex compiler outside matlab (using the mex command you've linked in /usr/local/bin) or from the matlab command line.

Wait a minute...

What is the point of creating symbolic links to

cd /usr/local/bin

when I have to scroll to it specifically?

Also, why can I open matlab in "run in terminal" but not in "run"

I don't know what you mean by "scroll to it specifically", but colucix explained the point of creating symbolic links in /usr/local/bin in the very first sentence of post 7.

start matlab and type in why and all shall be known.

I didnt know that why in MATLAB will have so many funny answers.