[Solved] "the soffice" file is listed as broken

[Hagar Delest]

Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 32-bit

Downloaded Apache OpenOffice 4.4.6_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz

Did the "Linux Pre-installation Notes" in the instructions.

Performed the "Linux DEB-based installation".

In the instructions see below note.

Note: Apache OpenOffice executable is called soffice and is located in /opt/OpenOffice4/program/
A softlink is created on your /usr/local/bin/ directory. You can always map to the original at /opt/ if it doesnt start
for whatever reason.

I take it I need to map "soffice" to /opt/OpenOffice4/program/ ? How? Below is what I have.

In usr/bin file "the soffice" file is listed as broken. Tried to fix the broken link.

Copied it over in the opt file "the soffice" file remains broken. With error---right click--follow link to original file--error message: could not find "/opt/openoffice4/program/soffice".

Please advise how to fix so openOffice will show up in the menu and work. I am aware that LibreOffice is available but there are issues with it (like no landscape printing in Calc). I have LibreOffice installed. Would like to have both.

Thanks,
Rob

[RusselB]

While I don't use Linux, I did note that, in your post, at times you refer to the file as "soffice" and, other times, as "the soffice"
It is my understanding, that the filename you are wanting is "soffice".. the additional "the " does make it a different file... unless you typed that extra accidentally.

[Hagar Delest]

Never checked what is said in the installation notes.
You don't need to map anything by yourself. Or it means that something's broken and the installation failed.

See here: [Tutorial] Installing Apache OpenOffice on GNU/Linux instead.

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

[Bill]

error message: could not find "/opt/openoffice4/program/soffice".

The link is shown as broken because the target for the link does not exist. The link is to the executable file that runs AOO. If that file doesn't exist then AOO is not properly installed.

Delete the link, then follow the instructions for installing AOO and the Desktop Integration package. The link will be reinstalled when the Desktop Integration package is installed.

[Villeroy]

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cd /usr/bin

ls -l soffice
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Nov 27 11:13 soffice -> ../lib/libreoffice/program/soffice

ls -l ../lib/libreoffice/program/soffice
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6051 Nov 27 11:13 ../lib/libreoffice/program/soffice


so soffice is a symbolic link pointing to file /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice which is the executable of the pre-installed libreoffice program. That executable file ../lib/libreoffice/program/soffice is readable, writable and executable by its owner root, and executable by anyone else.

You can and you should run the pre-installed office suite if you are unfamiliar with a Linux system. LibreOffice is far better than OpenOffice. Threre are not many use cases where it may make sense to install OpenOffice on a Linux PC. On my Linux system I can run OpenOffice but I can not work with it since it crashes with most of my files having database forms.

I use my copy of OpenOffice just as a reference for this forum. I start it like this:
Alt+F2 starts a little dialog window where you can enter a command to be executed. The little tool has a history. Arrow up and arrow down lets you walk through that history.
/opt/openoffice/program/soffice is an entry in that history. Of course you can also start the program from a shell in a terminal window which also has a history.

If you really insist in working with OpenOffice as your default office suite on Ubuntu Linux:

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cd /usr/bin
sudo rm soffice

removes the broken link. Now install the OpenOffice package which adds the desktop integration. It is a .deb file in a subdirectory of the extracted download package.
Your link might be broken because you removed the default office suite. However, this should have removed the link as well. Possibly you broke your system already.

P.S.
The installation of the "desktop integratioin" package for OpenOffice assuming that you extracted the downloaded package to your personal Downloads folder:

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cd ~/Downloads/en-US/DEBS/desktop-integration/
sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite *.deb

This will re-register the broken link /usr/bin/soffice to OpenOffice even if it used to be registered for LibreOffice before. Without --force-overwrite the system would refuse to install the new package because that file already belongs to another package.

[Rob1911]

Villeroy
Thanks for the information on the trade-off between LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice. Also, thanks for the "complete/concise" answer on how to re-register the broken link. I will think about this before trying it but will probably go with OpenOffice. Will give it a try over the weekend.
Thanks,
Rob

[Villeroy]

When you install your first Linux system, propably a popular distribution such as Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSUSE, Red Hat etc, the deal is this:

You get a ready made system with all user applications for every day tasks (office, browser, mail, media player, pdf viewer, picture viewer). If your hardware is compatible, the Linux system installs more or less automatically from USB stick and updates automatically from the internet. The automatic updates include all pre-installed applications such as LibreOffice but not the manually installed applications such as OpenOffice. In case of OpenOffice this does not matter since OpenOffice is no longer under active development.
As far as your hardware is compatible, all this works out of the box and you are not supposed to interfere with the system by any means other than using the software repository that comes with your distribution and which might be accessible through some type of "software store" as known from mobile systems. On Ubuntu I have an application labeled "Ubuntu Software" which provides all availlable extra software for my system. This software lets me remove any software cleanly and safe, so there are no remaining files or links ( such as /usr/bin/soffice ). If you removed your LibreOffice by other means, it may be possible that your system refuses to update itself due to unresolved conflicts, missing files, modified files. Every system file is registered in a database as belonging to one particular software package. This system is rock stable and reliable unless you use your root access to mess about with it.
As long as you are logged in as ordinary user, your home directory is the only directory where you allowed to read, write and create directories and files. You can do whatever your like with your own data but you can't mess with the system files. Likewise, the system won't touch your files in your home directory.

As long as you restrict yourself to the software repository of your distribution, the whole system should work and update itself until your version runs out of support. Before you install anything beyond the repository or before you compile some piece of latest software from source code (which is easily doable on Linux since the whole system and applications is made from free sources) you should read and understand some documentation. This operating system is by a magnitute less complicated than a Windows system but it is still a software system that is way more complex than most users imagine.
IMHO, it is inevitable to register at a support page for your Linux distribution like you registered at this forum.