Mathematica

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Mathematica
is a commercial program used in scientific, engineering and mathematical fields. Here we explain how to install it.
Installation
Since Mathematica is a non-free application and upgrades may incur costs, this section lists instructions for different available versions.
Mathematica 6
Mounting iso
One way to mount the Mathematica
.iso
is to create a
/media/iso
mount directory and add the following line to the
fstab
:
/
location/of/mathematica.iso
/media/iso iso9660 exec,ro,user,noauto,loop=/dev/loop0   0 0
Now you can mount it with:
# mount /media/iso
Running the installer
Run
MathInstaller
with:
# cd Unix/Installer
# sh ./MathInstaller
Note
If you do not place the "sh" in front, then you will get an error about a bad interpreter.
Fonts
Add the directories containing Type1 and BDF fonts to your FontPath.
Mathematica 7
Mathematica 7 is much easier to install.
# tar xf Mathematica-7.0.1.tar.gz
# cd Unix/Installer
# ./MathInstaller
Follow instructions.
For KDE users, the Mathematica icon may appear in the
Lost & Found
category. To solve this, execute the following as root:
# ln -s /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged /etc/xdg/menus/kde-applications-merged
Mathematica 8
An issue with Mathematica 8 is a reproducible crash when performing WolframAlpha[] functions. By default, Mathematica is configured to detect the system's proxy settings when configuring how to connect to the internet to fetch data. A "bug" exists that will eventually crash Mathematica when the calling library is used. A workaround is to avoid this library call altogether by configuring Mathematica to "directly connect" to the internet. (
Edit > Preferences > Internet Connectivity > Proxy Settings
). This bug has been reported to Wolfram.
Mathematica 10
Install
mathematica
AUR
(need historical version). The
Mathematica_10.XX.YY_LINUX.sh
installation script is required; you will need to download this separately from Wolfram.com, your university, etc. You will also need an activation key.
Mathematica 11
Install
mathematica
AUR
. Obtain
Mathematica_11.XX.YY_LINUX.sh
from Wolfram Research, along with an activation key, and save it to the package build directory. Successful install may throw non-critical errors: xdg-icon-resource, mkdir, xdg-desktop-menu. For more details see the
mathematica PKGBUILD file
.
Mathematica 11 automatically creates a document folder 'Wolfram Mathematica' in
$UserDocumentsDirectory
, which is set by Mathematica according to
XDG user directories
.
Mathematica 12
Install
the packages
avahi
and
inetutils
.
Start/enable
the service
avahi-daemon.service
.
Check that
hostnamectl
contains either a static or transient hostname.
Download
the install script from Wolfram. The filename will be
Mathematica_12.XX.YY_LINUX.sh
.
Make
Mathematica_12.XX.YY_LINUX.sh
executable
.
Run the install script as root. When ran as user, the installer will ask for another installation directory.
# ./Mathematica_12.XX.YY_LINUX.sh
Mathematica 13
The installation steps are the same as Mathematica 12.
Mathematica 14
The installation steps are the same as Mathematica 12.
Troubleshooting
Missing symbols
If you have font rendering problems where certain symbols do not show up (i.e.
/
appears as a square), try
this
solution. It also states the issue is fixed with Mathematica version 9.
Try having applications use anti-aliasing. 
For KDE:
System Settings > Application Appearance > Fonts > Use anti-aliasing (Enabled)
HiDPI / Retina screens
If you have a
HiDPI
screen, such as an Apple Retina display, and the main text in Mathematica looks small when you open it, this can be fixed:
Go to
Edit > Preferences
From the
Advanced
tab, click
Open Option Inspector
In the tree on the right, go to
Formatting Options > Font Options > Font Properties
Change the value for
"ScreenResolution"
to double its current setting, e.g. 72 to 144. You can also use
xdpyinfo | grep resolution
to get a more precise number (which will need to be doubled).
Conflicts with system libraries
The Mathematica package includes a number of its own libraries, located in
<INSTALL_DIR>/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64
. They may lead to some compatibility issues and fallback to the system versions of some of these libraries may be necessary.
Symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1: undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var
Force Mathematica to use the system version of the freetype library.
# cd <INSTALL_DIR>/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64
# mv libfreetype.so.6 libfreetype.so.6.old
Mathematica/11.3/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64/libz.so.1: version `ZLIB_1.2.9' not found (required by /usr/lib/libpng16.so.16)
Force Mathematica to use the system version of the zlib library.
# cd <INSTALL_DIR>/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64
# mv libz.so.1 libz.so.1.old
Symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6: undefined symbol: hb_ot_tags_from_script_and_language
Force Mathematica to use the system version of the harfbuzz library.
# cd <INSTALL_DIR>/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64
# mv libharfbuzz.so.0 libharfbuzz.so.0.old
See also
Official site
Official support