X11 terminal window on startup

[acurtis]

Welcome beginner. Please answer all of the questions below which may provide information necessary to answer your question.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which version of OpenOffice.org are you using? 2.4
What Operating System (version) are you using? Mac OS X 10.5.3
What is your question or comment?

Trying to open OpenOffice.org 2.4 on Mac OS X 10.5.3. Instead, it opens X11 and a terminal-like window that says "bash-3.2$". I don't know what to do then so I get a "command timed out" notice. Can;'t find explanation in documentation here on the web. What should I do?

[Gmez08]

I was wondering the same thing! Is there anyway to have OpenOffice open in my regular Mac OX Leopard system? Do I really need to have X11 open up? And what is X11, anyway?

[keme]

Did you drag the Open Office icon to the Applications folder? If you just open the disk image (dmg-file) and start Open Office from there, I guess you'll get that timeout error. Rather, open the dmg. Drag OpenOffice to the Applications folder, close the dmg-file again and start openoffice from the applications folder (or drag to the dock first).

I've seen reports of "dead" Openoffice and timeout even when doing that properly, though. The explanation and/or solution may lie in one of these threads:
problem with running after install
bash 3.2$ in layman's terms

[nmgeek]

All "solutions" I have seen on this forum so far involve making sure you installed the right
binary for your platform (ie, Intel vs PPC), and making sure you first copied
the application to your applications folder. If you did properly install the correct
version for you CPU type then you'd still be stuck.

But it seems there is a bug with OpenOffice on Leopard. Shaun McDonald has posted
a patch on his blog which worked for me. You can find his blog entry
at http://shaunmcdonald131.blogspot.com/20 ... d-out.html.

In short the solution is to open the file "OpenOffice.org 2.4.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt"
in the appication bundle and use "Script Editor" to replace the definition of openSoffice with the
following:

on openSoffice(aFile)
if (atLeastOSXVersion(10, 5, 0)) then
-- if we have leopard, we don't need to manually start the X server first
set theCmd to "sh " & (quoted form of (POSIX path of getOOProgramPath() & "soffice")) & " "
do shell script theCmd & aFile & shellTerminator()
else
set theDisplay to startXServer()
if (theDisplay is equal to "error") then
return
end if
set theEnv to "DISPLAY=" & theDisplay & " ; export DISPLAY; "
set theCmd to "sh " & (quoted form of (POSIX path of getOOProgramPath() & "soffice")) & " "
do shell script theEnv & theCmd & aFile & shellTerminator()
-- logEvent("open CMD: " & theEnv & theCmd & aFile)
end if
end openSoffice


I will attempt to figure out the OpenOffice bug reporting system and report this.

[nmgeek]

The bug was already logged as issue 87538. I added a note indicating that
it is a showstopper for OS X 10.5.3 (after you fix Apple's showstopper that
broke X11!)

[Ertai87]

Nevermind. Didn't read the blog post.

Edit:  Now whenever I open OOo, my mouse cursor moves to the middle of my screen. Anyone know why?

[kabing]

I was wondering the same thing! Is there anyway to have OpenOffice open in my regular Mac OX Leopard system? Do I really need to have X11 open up? And what is X11, anyway?

OpenOffice.org 2.4 requires X11 on a Mac. I'm not quite sure what X11 is; my impression is that it is sort of a "virtual machine" that lets Macs run what are essentially non-Mac programs.

If you don't want to mess with X11, you have two options:

1) Download the OpenOffice 3.0 Beta for Macs; it is a native Mac app, but it is still in Beta testing stage; it may prove to be unstable and/or buggy. (Recent reports here, however have been pretty positive about it)

2) Download NeoOffice, an independent Mac port/fork of OpenOffice.org. It is based on OpenOffice.org 2.2.1, with some additional features (Media Browser, Office 2007/2008 converters, access to Leopard's Grammar Checker, etc.). It is a final release rather than a Beta.

kabing

[acurtis]

Okay. Thanks to all who have provided very valuable information in reply. I really appreciate it. I think the solution for me is to stand on the sidelines and wait for OpenOffice to be truly Mac native. I'm eager to use it, but would like for it to be more plug-n-play. Thanks!

[TheGurkha]

A new OOo Beta 3.0 was released today, it is the first OOo to run on a Mac without the need for X11.

It can be obtained from OpenOffice.org Beta 3.0

[the1dukegirl]

Several threads seem to be touting NeoOffice to solve these evil bash-3.2$ problems. However, it doesn't seem to have templates the way OpenOffice provides additional possible downloads. Will OO downloads of templates and such work for NeoOffice?

Thanks.

[TheGurkha]

They should do. You can only try.

For clarity in the future please start a new thread for a new question. Thanks

[MacProMusician]

Dear User,

I found your thread due to having a similar problem to you.
Hopefully starting X11 is just an inconvenience when getting OpenOffice started, but I presume thereafter the software runs properly?

For me I get X11 launching with 'bash..." message - then 'timed out' message - then OpenOffice launches properly.
That may have all gone without saying, but I thought it's worth checking.
I presume like me, that OpenOffice would just launch properly like all other software and in which case, we're both waiting for a real version for intel mac

That said, I'm extremely happy with the software itself!

All the best