by Danny Quah, June 2020 (revised Jan 2022)
Pulse Secure Client is a VPN client that allows secure connection to a Pulse Connect Secure SSL VPN gateway. Many universities use that latter for faculty, staff, and student access to their computer systems. However, because Linux comes in many different flavors, the standard Pulse Secure Client installer does not always run to completion. (For one, [UWO.ca][] suggests "PulseSecure's understanding of Linux package managers and distributions in general seems very limited.") The user is then either forced to use a Windows machine, somehow, or fail VPN access when traveling with their Linux notebook.
This Gist describes the steps I took to install Pulse Secure Client on my Ubuntu-based Linux machines, including a Pixelbook running GalliumOS 3.1 and Dell desktops running Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04. Other writeups elsewhere that I've looked at describe the same problems I encountered, but were either out-dated, overly localised,
