OpenOffice 2.1 on Ubuntu (Kubuntu)

Posted January 6, 2007

Here’s a quick reference I adapted from another blog that had covered the need at an earlier time, but had become somewhat in need of updating. So here is the basic steps to installing OpenOffice 2.1 on Kubuntu (both Edgy 6.10 and Feisty Fawn 7.04):

  1. Download and install The Java SE Development Kit (JDK)
    1. I chose the link for Java(TM) SE Development Kit 6
    2. I then chose the link for the Linux self-extracting file (jdk-6-linux-i586.bin)
    3. run “sh jdk-6-linux-i586.bin” as normal user.
    4. I moved the resulting jdk1.6.0 directory to /home/username/bin/jdk1.6.0
    5. cd ~/bin && ln -s jdk1.6.0/jre jre
  2. Download OpenOffice 2.1 for Linux
  3. Remove previous version of OpenOffice 2.0 
    1. sudo apt-get remove --purge openoffice.org-*
  4. Convert OpenOffice 2.1 RPM packages to Debian packages: 
    1. sudo apt-get install fakeroot alien
    2. tar zxvf OOo_2.1.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US.tar.gz
    3. cd OOE680_m6_native_packed-1_en-US.9095/RPMS
    4. Convert the .rpm packages to .deb (debian packages)
    5. fakeroot alien -d *.rpm
  5. Now install the new Debian packages 
    1. sudo dpkg -i *.deb
    2. cd desktop-integration/
    3. sudo dpkg -i openoffice.org-debian-menus_2.1-5_all.deb
  6. Profit. ;-)

Adapted from: Techno Wizah: Debian HOW-TO: OpenOffice 2.0

14 Comments so far

  1. Rae on January 19th, 2007

    Very reliable, made installation easy.

  2. isagani on January 21st, 2007

    I followed you’re guide and encountered the following warnings during convertion to .deb:

    Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package openoffice.org-core10: postinst postrm
    Warning: Use the –scripts parameter to include the scripts.

    Is this ok? or should I do the –scripts thing?

    Thanks for the guide. Very helpful.

  3. steven on January 21st, 2007

    Greetings Rae! Thanks for the feedback!

    Kumusta Paulo! I kind of recall seeing those warnings but I’m not sure. If I did get them I would be somewhat disappointed that I didn’t mention them.

    I either didn’t receive them or I just ignored them. What did you do? How did your install turn out for you?

    Either way I went ahead and visited you blog and would like to say great job on your post with the Beryl desktop movie. I’ve added your blog to the links from mine! :)

    Salamat and all the best from Central California!

  4. isagani on January 22nd, 2007

    Turned out fine! I’ll take note of these warnings just in case I notice some problems in OpenOffice.

    Thanks for the link. :)

  5. Hugues on January 28th, 2007

    Hi,

    Nice tutorial, thanks a lot for linking my original instructions on OpenOffice 2.0.

    Keep up the good work,

    Hugues

  6. Fuzzy Eric on January 28th, 2007

    For step 15.1, try (q.v. http://bodmas.org/blog/?p=523 )

    fakeroot alien –script –keep-version -d *.rpm

    possibly prefixed with a sudo (although this shouldn’t be necessary if you’ve downloaded the RPMs into one of your directories).

  7. jim on January 29th, 2007

    Didn’t work for me. Starting at step 13, 14 and 15.

  8. steven on January 31st, 2007

    Didn’t work to untar the file??? Wow that would definitely be a show stopper. What was the error? Sounds like something really simple like either a corrupted download that wasn’t finished or misspelled filename… But I’m just guessing without any hints.

    What happened?

  9. Mike Liu, CSMS on February 18th, 2007

    OpenOffice 2.1 on Ubuntu 6.10…

    Ubuntu 6.10 comes pre-installed with OpenOffice 2.0, the Linux replacement for Microsoft Office. Although OpenOffice 2.0 is quite good and has proven to be fairly compatible with MS Office documents, version 2.1 has added even more great tools — including…

  10. Bones on February 25th, 2007

    Nice guide, but unfortunately my system keeps telling me it wants to autoremove openoffice.org-writer.

    I’ve tried removing it, purging it and reinstalling it, but it still keeps bugging me!

    Any ideas? :)

    Cheers

  11. Gk@gnome on March 12th, 2007

    Hey thanks for the guide. I tried another earlier, and it wasn’t working out. This one worked quite nicely. I did get that message: “Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package openoffice.org-core10: postinst postrm
    Warning: Use the –scripts parameter to include the scripts.” But so far I have experienced no problems because of that. Thanks again!

  12. Peter Shannon on March 14th, 2007

    I ran this after converting all the files with the command alien described in the tutorial to reproduce the only package which complained (no warning with the –script flag):

    fakeroot alien -d –script\ openoffice.org-core10-2.1.06.i586.rpm

    then continued following the original instructions exactly. The install worked fine and OO seems to work too.

  13. Peter Shannon on March 14th, 2007

    Doooh the line should have looked like this:

    fakeroot alien -d –-scripts openoffice.org-core10-2.1.06.i586.rpm

  14. steven on March 18th, 2007

    Hey thanks for the Comments Peter!

    I’ll have to give that command another try the next time I go through the exercise.

    Cheers!

    Steven

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