OpenOffice2

From OptionC

As of now (November 2, 2005), it's not easy to install OpenOffice 2.0 with the existing Debian packages. They're not available in stable, so you have to go searching into unstable and experimental. Some of the dependencies seem to get wrapped around themselves making for terrific pain in the neck.

An alternative is to download the RPM packages from OpenOffice.org (http://download.openoffice.org/2.0.0/index.html) or BitTorrent Download (http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/index.html). The size of the package is approximately 100MB - we suggest using the BitTorrent download because it seems to irritate the RIAA and the MPAA that a download mechanism can be used for something other than piracy.

After downloading the packages, do the following from a terminal window:

  • Unpack the package - my resulting directory was OOO680_m3_native_packed-2_en-US.8968
  • cd into the directory, and then into the RPMS subdirectory
  • Become root (su).
  • From the same directory (you did do "su", and not "su -", right?), type the following: 
# alien -i *.rpm

(Note: if you get a message saying something like "bash: alien: command not found then you'll need to install the alien package. As root, do something like the following: "# apt-get alien", after which you should be able to do the # alien -i *.rpm command.)

  • Wait.
  • Continue waiting.
  • Takes a little bit of time, doesn't it?
  • When the prompt finally returns (hopefully without errors), OpenOffice 2.0 will be installed.
  • To add the desktop integration (menu items, etc.), type the following: 
# cd desktop-integration
# dpkg -i *.deb
  • And that's it.

If you have some issues running OpenOffice, there are some suggestions in the README files stored in the readmes subdirectory.

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