Documentation/How Tos/Installing on Debian based Distros

The Ubuntu concept is that once a flavor is released, there is no update for its content, except security issues. Therefore, once you stick to a flavor (Dapper, Edgy, Feisty, ...), your OOo version is not updated. Basic reason is : integration has been validated with this package, a new one could mess the system.

But Ubuntu releases of OOo are known to be rather bugged, especially the Feisty one. From 2.3, OOo is also available in .deb format, no need to convert the packages with alien as before.

Here is an installation method for all Debian-based distros :

Remove all the packages from the installed version

Go to Synaptic or your package manager and mark all the openoffice.org packages installed to be removed (there is the string ubuntu in their version number).

This is mandatory for your first upgrade of the distro delivered OOo version. There is no need to do that for the following upgrades. For Ubuntu, the system will also remove the ubuntu-desktop package. This is a meta package that can be removed safely. But in case you want to upgrade your whole distro, you will have to install back this package (and the OOo original version).

Alternatively, in Ubuntu, open a terminal and enter:

   sudo apt-get remove openoffice.org-core

Download the tarball (.tar.gz file) from the official OOo web site

Go to http://download.openoffice.org/other.html and select the Linux DEB version. If you have troubles getting the automatic download, see on the mirrors: http://distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors/#mirrors.

Extract the tarball in your home directory (or any other directory you want)

Open a terminal (you should be directly in your home directory) and enter:

   tar -vxzf filename

Example (for 2.4.0): filename = OOo_2.4.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz

You should see a new folder, say OOo_inst_folder. Example (for 2.4.0): OOo_inst_folder = OOH680_m12_native_packed-1_en-US.9286

Install the created .debs

If you have the RPMS package and do not want to download again the DEBS package, you can convert the RPMs to DEBs using the following command to be launched before installing the created .debs. sudo alien -d --scripts *.rpm

   cd OOo_inst_folder/DEBS
   sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Update the Gnome menu

1. Go to the desktop integration subfolder.

   cd desktop-integration

2. Run again the previous installation command.

   sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Here you are, menus should have been updated. Contents of this article derived from the OpenOffice.org User Forum

Content on this page is licensed under the Public Documentation License (PDL).