Installing MATLAB 2016a onto ubuntu 16.04?

1. If unzip command isn't already installed in your system, run:

   sudo apt-get install unzip
   

2. Go to the directory you downloaded Matlab .zip file:

   cd /path/to/download/directory
   

3. Unzip the file:

   unzip downloaded_matlab_zip_file.zip -d matlab_destination_directory
   

4. Navigate to matlab_destination_directory:

   cd matlab_destination_directory
   

5. Run the Matlab installer:

   ./install
   

6. Follow these installation steps from the vendor.

Important hint: The MATLAB installation wizard may get stuck creating the installation directory (by default /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a) because it does not have enough write permissions. If that happens, the easy solution is to run the Matlab installer as a super user

sudo ./install

A useful post regarding this issue in particular is here: How to get permissions to a folder in an installation process?