Installing MySQL Workbench on Ubuntu 9.10

MySQL Workbench is a GUI tool for MySQL database for running queries, data modification and visual design of database. The community version of the software is distributed under
GPL license. Install the application was quiet simple on Ubuntu but it has some catch that I though it's better to share.

Getting MySQL Workbench
Downloading the application is very simple. Both development and GA release is available on MySQL website. I downloaded the latest GA release which is Workbench 5.1.18a. Select "Ubuntu Linux" from the platforms selection and you will be presented with both 32-bit & 64-bit versions. Also, the versions available are designated for Ubnutu 8.04 & Ubnutu 9.04. I downloaded the 32-bit version for Ubuntu 9.04 for installation.

Installing MySQL Workbench
Installing the application is also simple. If you use Gnome, you can simply double click the downloaded deb file and Package Installer will take care of checking dependencies and proper installation. If you prefer the command line you may use the dpkg command and install as follows:

sudo dpkg -i mysql-workbench-oss-5.1.18a-1ubu904-i386.deb

Once installation is complete, you will be able to access the application from Gnome menu as Applications - > Programming -> MySQL Workbench. You will have no trouble loading the application. But once you try establishing connection with your MySQL server you get an error message as follows:

Couldn't load library libmysqlclient_r.so:
libmysqlclient_r.so: cannot open shared object file: No such
file or directory

To fix this you need to create a symbolic for libmysqlclient library. The symbolic link can be created as follows:

sudo ln -sf libmysqlclient_r.so.16.0.0 libmysqlclient_r.so

I had two versions of libmysqlclient version 15 & 16. I created symbolic link for the latest version. And once you are done, re-launch the application it should work fine.