Did the desktop icon point to /usr/bin/startlazarus?
After your question, when I got back to my Linux machine, I checked /usr/bin and sure enough, there was "startlazarus". I completely overlooked it before and had found it in /usr/lib/lazarus. I changed the desktop icon to now point to /usr/bin/startlazarus and got the same good results - all new components are present and functioning. I feel better about launching from /usr/bin as this is the proper place for user commands. Thanks for noticing that.