Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I'm wanting to get rid of the LibreOffice suite on my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64-bit OS and install Openoffice 3.4 in its place.

I've already removed all the LibreOffice apps in the suite via Ubuntu Software Center.

I've tried to install Openoffice 3.4 on my machine a few different ways:

Via the instructions found on http://www.upubuntu.com/2012/05/how-to- ... 4-via.html
(RESULT: Tried to open Openoffice in the DASH. Nothing except blank bar at top of screen [where it usually displays the name of the active application])

Via downloading the Openoffice package directly from the openoffic.org website's auto-download function on the home page
(RESULT: Discovered from another thread [on the oooforum.org] that the auto-download button downloads the RPM package while Ubuntu uses DEB)
SOoooo........

Downloaded the appropriate package (Apache_OpenOffice_incubating_3.4.1_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz)
Followed the following directions (from "Ed"):

Download the package to your desktop, then right click on the package and select "Extract Here".

Now open a terminal and enter
Code:
cd ~/Desktop/en-US/DEBS

Then
Code:
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Enter your password when requested, then the actual installation will start.

Now install the desktop integration package by opening the "en-US" folder on your desktop, then go into "DEBS", then "desktop-integration", and double click on the only file in that folder and follow the on-screen instructions.

You can now delete the original package and the extracted "en-US" folder from your desktop.

However, when I attempted the desktop integration, from the Ubuntu Software Center, I encountered an error.
Attempted to perform the desktop integration from the terminal. Returned the following:

(Reading database ... 176860 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openoffice.org-debian-menus (from openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb (--install):
trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/soffice', which is also in package libreoffice-common 1:3.5.4-0ubuntu1.1
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for gnome-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb

Attempted to delete the offending "soffice" file from /usr/bin but returned permission denied error message (I'm the administrator, only user, etc.)

My experience in installing OpenOffice over several Ubuntu installations of LibreOffice on a number of computers is this:
I used Synaptic to remove all traces of Libreoffice - from memory, it was sufficient to remove libreoffice-core.

Then I expanded the OpenOffice download, the AOO downloads expanding into directory en-GB.
In terminal I cd into that directory and again into DEBS. You should now be in en-GB/DEBS
then
sudo dpkg -i *.deb and answer the password prompt.
Then
cd desktop-integration
and again
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

If anything gripes during installation it is because the LibreOffice install was not fully removed and one has to go back and investigate with synaptic. If your install fails it is probably best to also remove any OpenOffice traces with synaptic or sudo apt-get remove openoffice-core.

attempted to delete the offending "soffice" file from /usr/bin but returned permission denied error message

you need to uninstall the LO desktop integration file, using synaptic or whatever you normally use, by the sound of it

Try doing it as I have set out above. It has _always_ worked for me that way.

There are many users reporting such issue. I think that using the Ubuntu software center is not enough and that you indeed need to install Synaptic to remove all traces of LibO...
Note that on my Ubuntu system, the file association keeps the LibO icons! But that's another story. LibO seems to be deeply integrated now in Ubuntu.

Please add '[Solved]' at the beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

RoryOF wrote:Try doing it as I have set out above. It has _always_ worked for me that way.

It worked for me too.

The key was removing LibreOffice core using Synaptics.

Running Ubuntu Linux 11.04 32-bit.

I did get the following error messages but OpenOffice seemed to installed okay.

[Before anyone get's there undies in a knot, I realize that this is an old post. It just frustrated me to know end and thought in the interest of reducing perhaps one other persons pain I would post the solution.]

It seems removing libreoffice-core was not enough on Ubuntu 12.10. I had to remove the libreoffice-common package manually as well after observing the following in output from dpkg when installing OOo - desktop-integration:

$ sudo dpkg -iD40 openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb
(Reading database ... 155140 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openoffice.org-debian-menus (from openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb) ...
D000040: does_replace new=openoffice.org-debian-menus:all old=libreoffice-common:all (1:3.6.2~rc2-0ubuntu3)
D000040: does_replace ... no
D000040: does_replace new=libreoffice-common:all old=openoffice.org-debian-menus:all (0:3.4-9593)
D000040: does_replace ... no
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb (--install):
trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/soffice', which is also in package libreoffice-common 1:3.6.2~rc2-0ubuntu3
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for gnome-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
openoffice.org3.4-debian-menus_3.4-9593_all.deb

So I ran:
$ sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libgconf2-4:i386 libnspr4-0d:i386 libnss3-1d:i386 linux-headers-3.5.0-17
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libreoffice-common
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 14 not upgraded.
After this operation, 70,2 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
(Reading database ... 155139 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing libreoffice-common ...
rmdir: failed to remove `/var/lib/libreoffice/share/prereg/': No such file or directory
rmdir: failed to remove `/var/lib/libreoffice/share/': Directory not empty
rmdir: failed to remove `/var/lib/libreoffice/program/': No such file or directory
rmdir: failed to remove `/var/lib/libreoffice': Directory not empty
rmdir: failed to remove `/var/lib/libreoffice': Directory not empty
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for gnome-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ...

And Voila OOo works!

bokdrol, Thanks for the post. I had the same issue. The Ubuntu Help had >[ sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice-core ], but doing what you did >[ sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-common ] which did 3 more removals, and then re-running the >[ sudo dpkg -i *.deb ] in the en-US/DEBS/desktop-integration Directory fixed it all up. This was on Ubuntu 13.04

Tremendously helpful for me, kind of Newbie to Linux again after a being away for 10 years. I never embraced it, until recently. I'm really lovin it.