Difficulty installing on Mint

Issues with installing under all GNU/Linux Distributions
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braziers
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Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by braziers »

Hi all,

I am running Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 32-bit 2.8.8 kernel 3.13.0-24-generic. I used to be a regular user of Linux, up until about 2007, so it's been roughly 10 years since I used the system but I have just returned to it and am trying to bring myself up to speed as fast as I can - especially since I am now administrator to a non-profit that runs Linux Mint.

We currently have LibreOffice installed, but I would like to have both OpenOffice and LO on our system. Sometimes, I've noticed, OO has better Microsoft Office compatibility. I have deleted the previous LO symlinks and have tried installing OO as per the instructions on the website.

Trouble is, every time I try to install the openoffice4.1-debian-menus_4.1.3-9783_all.deb file nothing seems to happen. The terminal runs, no folder shows up in /opt - just the same looping message that all dependencies are installed and to install again as per screenshot attached.

Am I missing something here? I cd the desktop integration directory fine. whereis soffice and whereis openoffice4 return no results.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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oo install.jpg
OpenOffice on Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 32-bit 2.8.8 kernel 3.13.0-24-generic
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by Hagar Delest »

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Have you installed with the command line? It's easier to spot any issue.
Have you followed the tutorial here: [Tutorial] Installing Apache OpenOffice on GNU/Linux?
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
braziers
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by braziers »

Yes that is exactly what I did. When I follow the step sudo dpkg -i *.deb the terminal automatically opens my package installer.
OpenOffice on Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 32-bit 2.8.8 kernel 3.13.0-24-generic
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RoryOF
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by RoryOF »

Did you unpack the downloaded deb file using the system archiver? It should have a name similar to Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.3_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-GB.tar.gz (the en-GB will change according to the language version you downloaded). This will unpack into (in the above case) a folder en-GB. In a terminal change into that folder, then into subfolder DEBS and there issue the sudo dpkg -i *.deb. Once that is complete, cd desktop-integration and once again sudo dpkg -i *.deb.

If at this stage you get an error message (you probably will) this is due to the installed LibreOffice using some file, which I think needs to be renamed. I use only OpenOffice, so cannot tell you what that file is; I normally remove all traces of LibreOffice before installing OpenOffice.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
braziers
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by braziers »

Yes of course I did that too... don't know how I could get so far otherwise? :P

It is quite important that we keep both LO and OO on our system. I had seen that some people had achieved this...

Surely it can't be just as simple as renaming LO?
OpenOffice on Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 32-bit 2.8.8 kernel 3.13.0-24-generic
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RoryOF
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by RoryOF »

Doing it that way ought not open your package installer. As far as I remember there is one file that needs to be renamed, or aliased, but I have no personal knowledge of just which file. I know it has been mentioned on the Forum - I think in a posting from Villeroy, but I'm not 100% certain.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
braziers
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by braziers »

If it's the symlink, I dealt with that.

What can I say, it did (open package installer). Surely that would not make a difference, anyhoo?

So basically no-one can really help unless I delete LO... hmm...
OpenOffice on Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 32-bit 2.8.8 kernel 3.13.0-24-generic
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RoryOF
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by RoryOF »

Perhaps there is someone using Mint who can advise. I don't like the package installer opening - dpkg should run on the command line without invoking anything else.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Difficulty installing on Mint

Post by Hagar Delest »

RoryOF wrote:I don't like the package installer opening - dpkg should run on the command line without invoking anything else.
+1. It may be a change by Mint to avoid user using the command line. Still rather strange.
Perhaps you can log in with the tty session (Ctrl + Alt + F1). Then you need to go to the folder with the command line. Then try again the dpkg command and no graphical UI should show up.
Once done (keep a record of the error message), log out and go back to the graphical session with Ctrl + Alt + F7.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
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