Using the LD_PRELOAD workaround on Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS gives another issue with libgcc:
uname: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
sed: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
/lib64/libc.so.6: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
head: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
sed: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
awk: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
rm: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
/home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/bin/glnxa64/MATLAB: /home/tom/Projects/Software/matlab_2008b/installation_package/bin/glnxa64/../../sys/os/glnxa64/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6)
Adding system’s libgcc to LD_PRELOAD works:
LD_PRELOAD="/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1" matlab