Can I delete the Matlab installation file in root user home directory

Question

I just found Matlab (2016a) put a 2.5 Gb installation files that it fetched during the installation in the root home directory (Linux mint 18), under /root/Downloads/MathWorks . I guess it is probably because I use sudo for installation.

My question is:

1. Is it normal that program store information when user executes it with sudo ?
2. Can I delete the file under /root/Downloads ? (My limited Linux knowledge told me do not touch anything in the /root folder)

Answer 1

• When you execute anything with su...do , you basically execute it 'as' root .
• Mathworks uses the Download-Folder (which is in your case /root/Downloads - since you have executed the installer as root) for temporary data (According to https://de.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/229835-is-the-mathworks-folder-necessary-to-run-properly?requestedDomain=www.mathworks.com ).
• So, yes. It seems like you can delete the folder.
• Or just move it to MathWorks.bak and check if Mathworks still works properly. In case everything is working fine, you can delete MathWorks.bak .

Answer 2

1. A program can do anything when run as sudo and depends only on what the program is designed to do. sudo simply elevates the permissions when running a given command.

2. I would have thought that the installer would have downloaded everything to /tmp instead of /root/Downloads , but as long as you didn't select /root/Downloads as your installation directory for MATLAB and this is only the temporary download location you can certainly remove it after successfully installing MATLAB to a "typical" location such as /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a .