MATLAB: Do I get an error about loading client module in Virtual Reality Toolbox 4.5 (R2007a) on the Linux platform

Simulink 3D Animation

I am using of Virtual Reality Toolbox 4.5 (R2007a) student version on Ubuntu 8.04.
When I try to run the "Car in the Mountains" demo I get the following error:
 world = vrworld('vrmount.wrl');
 Cannot load the VR client module.
 libGL.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Best Answer

There may be two causes which make MATLAB throw this error:
1. This may be an issue with the OpenGL installation on the computer. The library libGL.so is the OpenGL library and it needs to be present on the machine. It is usually found at /usr/lib. However, some distributions do not have libGL.so but only its versioned alias, libGL.so.1. You may create a symlink named libGL.so that will point to libGL.so.1 to solve the problem.
Or,
2. OpenGL may be missing altogether. In this case it is necessary to install it.
The following page: http://www.mathworks.com/support/sysreq/release2007a/linux.html has a footnote concerning Other distributions for Linux which provides some more information:
-- Other Linux Distributions: For any other 32-bit or 64-bit Linux distribution not explicitly listed above, R2007a requires the distribution to be built using Kernel 2.4.x or 2.6.x and glibc (glibc6) 2.3.4 or higher.
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