A friend asked me about creating a small web interface that accepts some inputs, sends them to MATLAB for number crunching and outputs the results. I'm a Python/Django developer by trade, so I can handle the web interface, but I am clueless when it comes to MATLAB. Specifically:

I'd really like to avoid hosting this on a Windows server. Any issues getting MATLAB running in Linux with scripts created on Windows?
Should I be looking into shelling out commands or compiling it to C and using ctypes to interact with it?
If compiling is the way to go, is there anything I should know about getting it compiled and working in Python? (It's been a long time since I've compiled or worked with C)

Any suggestions, tips, or tricks on how to pull this off?
Regarding OS compatibility, if you use the matlab version for Linux, the scripts written in windows should work without any changes. 
If possible, you may also consider the possibility of doing everything with python. Scipy/numpy with Matplotlib provide a complete Matlab replacement.
How do I interact with MATLAB from Python?