1 This issue can be due to several different issues. The most common causes are:
 2 
 3 One or more of the binaries required for installation inside the MATLAB installation folder does not have execute permissions
 4 Launching the installer without an X11 display configured
 5 The user that is launching the installer is not able to display windows on this X11 display
 6 Libraries required for the MATLAB installer are missing
 7 Issue #1: One or more of the binaries required for installation inside the MATLAB installation folder does not have execute permissions
 8 
 9 To resolve this issue, grant execute permission to the entire MATLAB installer folder by running this command from the folder which contains the installer folder:
10 
11 sudo chmod -R 777 matlab_R20XXx_glnxa64 
12 ​You must be part of the sudoers/wheel group to run this command and will be prompted for your password. We do not recommend installing as root.
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14 Issue #2: Launching the installer without an X11 display configured
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16 Launching the MATLAB installer on a machine without an X11 display will fail unless you configure the installer to run silently. To install MATLAB without an X11 display, see the below related article:
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18 How do I use the Silent Installer for MATLAB?
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20 http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/98137
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22 Issue #3: The user that is launching the installer is not able to display windows on this X11 display
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24 This issue often occurs when launching the installer as root. See the below for more information:
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26 Why can\'t I install MATLAB with the root account in Linux when the installer works for my user account?
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28 http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/133944
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30 Issue #4: Libraries required for the MATLAB installer are missing
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32 MATLAB is fully supported on Desktop installation of Linux. It is not supported on minimal or server distributions. A minimal installation may not contain all libraries that MATLAB requires.
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34 Even if you intend to run MATLAB only in non-graphical mode, MATLAB requires some X11 libraries to run. Unfortunately, we are not able to specify the X11 requirements down to the exact set of packages required because different distributions may package the libraries differently. MATLAB will work out of the box on desktop installations of any supported distribution.
35 
36 See the below for a list of qualified distributions:
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38 http://www.mathworks.com/support/sysreq/current_release/index.html?sec=linux

1 I had the same issue when installing on a remote server. The splash screen would briefly appear, and then abruptly be \'finished\'.
2 
3 Turns out there was some missing packages required for X11, even though the splash screen was displayed remotely (however briefly). I resolved this by installing xterm, which caused the missing packages to be installed also:
4 
5 $ sudo apt-get install xterm
6 $ xterm
7 If xterm produces an X window ok, then the matlab installer should now work.