I tried cancelling more flags but to no avail. Then I looked at the output of "strace inkscape" and saw this:
open("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape/tls/x86_64/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape/tls/x86_64", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape/tls/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape/tls", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape/x86_64/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape/x86_64", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/bin/../lib/inkscape/../lib/inkscape", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/lib64/tls/x86_64/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/lib64/tls/x86_64", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/lib64/tls/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/lib64/tls", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/lib64/x86_64/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/lib64/x86_64", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/lib64/libgdl_LIB.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
Based on this - another workaround for starting /usr/bin/inkscape is to symlink /usr/lib/lib to point to /usr/lib.
I tried cancelling more flags but to no avail. Then I looked at the output of "strace inkscape" and saw this:
open("/ usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape/ tls/x86_ 64/libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape/ tls/x86_ 64", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape/ tls/libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape/ tls", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape/ x86_64/ libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape/ x86_64" , 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape/ libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) usr/bin/ ../lib/ inkscape/ ../lib/ inkscape" , 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) lib64/tls/ x86_64/ libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) lib64/tls/ x86_64" , 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) lib64/tls/ libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) lib64/x86_ 64/libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) lib64/x86_ 64", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) lib64/libgdl_ LIB.so" , O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/
open("/
stat("/
open("/
stat("/
open("/
stat("/
open("/
stat("/
open("/
stat("/lib64/tls", 0x7ffd701aa7f0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/
stat("/
open("/
Based on this - another workaround for starting /usr/bin/inkscape is to symlink /usr/lib/lib to point to /usr/lib.