Citrix Receiver on Ubuntu 14.04

Woohoo, got my new work laptop today, a Lenovo Thinkpad T430.

I didn't even boot into Windows, just stuck the Ubuntu CD in and installed 14.04 64 bit.

I now have it pretty much set up the way I like it, but Citrix Receiver (of all things!) gave me some troubles and I thought I'd better document what I did for next time I decide to re-install.

Firstly, the Ubuntu Wiki page on installing ICA Client is very good. It can be found at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CitrixICAClientHowTo and there is even a section on installing Citrix Receiver 12.1 on 64 bit 14.04. It is a great shame that Citrix have created a .deb which will not install, and which needs to be fixed and repackaged before it is useable, but the instructions are simple to follow, and it installed correctly when I followed them.

The the next gotcha hit. Open XenDesktop, and it opens full screen. Even when Windowed mode is selected in the ICA Client configuration. That's a problem right there, as there is no simple way of getting back to your Ubuntu Desktop, other than using some extra key combos or logging off the XenDesktop. Neither of these make for an easy or productive work experience.

I asked around on the net and found very little help, except in the Citrix community forums, where one guy suggested I set the desired Horizontal and Vertical resolution globally. This worked, and I thought I'd document it here too, if only for my own use in the future.

The file I edited to force the resolutions I wanted was:

/opt/Citrix/ICAClient/config/All_Regions.ini

and the values I changed were from

DesiredHRES=*
DesiredVRES=*

to

DesiredHRES=1024
DesiredVRES=768

This means that when I open my XenDesktop now, it opens in a window 1024x768 which I can then maximise like any other window. This means I can put the maximised XenDesktop window in one workspace and my other stuff in the other 3 workspaces and easily flick back and forth between them.

Et voila! Productivity restored!