Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

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!

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?

Yes that is exactly what I did. When I follow the step sudo dpkg -i *.deb the terminal automatically opens my package installer.

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.

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

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?

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.

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...

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.

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.