Installing Citrix Workspace on Ubuntu 26.04 (A Troubleshooting Guide)

Installing proprietary software on a bleeding-edge Linux distribution is always an adventure.

I recently installed Ubuntu 26.04 on my workstation and needed Citrix Workspace for work. The installation itself looked straightforward: download the .deb package and install it.

Unfortunately, Citrix Workspace expected some libraries that were no longer available by default on Ubuntu 26.04.

What followed was a series of missing dependencies, incompatible library versions, and a bit of Linux troubleshooting.

This guide documents the complete process that worked for me.

Installing Citrix Workspace

I downloaded the 64-bit .deb package for Citrix Workspace.

In my case, the downloaded package was:

icaclient-gcc-8_26.04.0.105_amd64.deb

Initially, I installed it using:

sudo dpkg -i icaclient-gcc-8_26.04.0.105_amd64.deb

However, the installation failed because of missing dependencies.

A better way to install local .deb packages is:

sudo apt install ./icaclient-gcc-8_26.04.0.105_amd64.deb

Unlike dpkg, apt can automatically resolve dependencies available in the Ubuntu repositories.

If you have already used dpkg and ended up with a partially installed package, run:

sudo apt --fix-broken install

Citrix Workspace Refused to Open

After completing the installation, Citrix Workspace appeared in the application menu.

However, clicking the icon did nothing.

The best way to troubleshoot an application that refuses to launch is to run it directly from the terminal.

/opt/Citrix/ICAClient/selfservice

This revealed the actual problem:

error while loading shared libraries: libxml2.so.2:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Finding All the Missing Libraries

Instead of fixing libraries one at a time, we can use ldd to find all missing dependencies.

Run:

ldd /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/selfservice | grep "not found"

In my case, the output was:

libxml2.so.2 => not found
libsoup-2.4.so.1 => not found
libxml2.so.2 => not found
libsoup-2.4.so.1 => not found
libmanette-0.2.so.0 => not found

There were three missing libraries:

• libxml2.so.2
• libsoup-2.4.so.1
• libmanette-0.2.so.0

Installing libsoup and libmanette

Fortunately, both libsoup and libmanette were available in the Ubuntu 26.04 repositories.

Install them using:

sudo apt install libsoup-2.4-1 libmanette-0.2-0

Now check the missing dependencies again:

ldd /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/selfservice | grep "not found"

The only remaining dependency should be:

libxml2.so.2 => not found

The libxml2 Problem

Ubuntu 26.04 ships with:

libxml2.so.16

We can verify this using:

ldconfig -p | grep libxml2

The output on my system was:

libxml2.so.16 (libc6,x86-64) =>
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.16

However, Citrix Workspace expects:

libxml2.so.2

One tempting solution would be to create a symbolic link from libxml2.so.16 to libxml2.so.2.

Don’t do this.

These libraries have different ABIs, and pretending one version is another can result in crashes or unpredictable behaviour.

Instead, we can provide Citrix with an older compatibility library without modifying Ubuntu’s system libraries.

Creating a Private Compatibility Directory

Create a directory that will contain the older libraries required by Citrix:

mkdir -p ~/citrix-compat

Now download the Ubuntu 24.04 version of libxml2:

cd ~/Downloads

wget https://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libx/libxml2/libxml2_2.9.14+dfsg-1.3ubuntu3.8_amd64.deb

Instead of installing the old package system-wide, extract it into our compatibility directory:

dpkg-deb -x \
libxml2_2.9.14+dfsg-1.3ubuntu3.8_amd64.deb \
~/citrix-compat

Verify that the library was extracted:

find ~/citrix-compat -name "libxml2.so.2*"

The output should look similar to:

/home/ankyte/citrix-compat/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.2

/home/ankyte/citrix-compat/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.2.9.14

Launching Citrix with the Compatibility Library

We can now tell Citrix to load libraries from our compatibility directory using LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Run:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/citrix-compat/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" \
/opt/Citrix/ICAClient/selfservice

Unfortunately, this revealed one final missing dependency:

error while loading shared libraries: libicuuc.so.74:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The older libxml2 library depends on ICU 74, which is also no longer available by default on Ubuntu 26.04.

Installing ICU 74 Privately

Download the ICU 74 package:

cd ~/Downloads

wget https://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu74_74.2-1ubuntu3.1_amd64.deb

Extract it into the same compatibility directory:

dpkg-deb -x \
libicu74_74.2-1ubuntu3.1_amd64.deb \
~/citrix-compat

Now check for missing dependencies again:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/citrix-compat/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu" \
ldd /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/selfservice | grep "not found"

If the command produces no output, all required libraries are available.

Finally Launching Citrix Workspace

Launch Citrix Workspace:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/citrix-compat/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" \
/opt/Citrix/ICAClient/selfservice

And Citrix Workspace should finally open.

Creating a Convenient Launcher

Typing the complete LD_LIBRARY_PATH command every time isn’t particularly convenient.

Create a wrapper script:

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/citrix-workspace

Add:

#!/bin/bash

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/citrix-compat/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"

exec /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/selfservice "$@"

Save the file and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/citrix-workspace

Now Citrix Workspace can be launched using:

citrix-workspace

Wrapping Up

The main problem was that Citrix Workspace expected older versions of libraries that were no longer shipped by default with Ubuntu 26.04.

The missing dependencies were:

libxml2.so.2
libsoup-2.4.so.1
libmanette-0.2.so.0
libicuuc.so.74

The libraries available directly from the Ubuntu 26.04 repositories could be installed normally.

For the older libxml2 and ICU libraries, the safer solution was to extract them into a private compatibility directory and expose them only to Citrix using LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

This approach avoids downgrading Ubuntu’s system libraries or creating unsafe symbolic links between incompatible library versions.

And after several missing libraries, dependency checks, and terminal commands, Citrix Workspace finally worked on Ubuntu 26.04.

Just another normal day of using Linux.