How To Get and Use OpenOffice?

[JusGellin]

Is there an OpenOffice sfs or pet?
How can I use it in BookwormPup?

Thanks

[Trapster]

Try here for a portable version.

viewtopic.php?p=101438&hilit=openoffice#p101438

[JusGellin]

Thanks @Trapster
Thanks for getting me started in the right direction.
I wanted to show what I did for my reference in the future and what may help someone else (this works well):

1. Download OpenOffice for Pet: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/nmk44ji10au0r/4.1.14
2. This downloads OpenOffice-portable64.tar.xz - verify checksum also.
3. Extract using Uextract in Download folder
4. Open "OpenOffice-portable64.tar.xz.extracted" folder - open "OpenOffice-portable64" folder
5 Move "OpenOffice-portable64.App" to desired location - I put it at /opt.
6. Click on the app to make sure it works and set it up first time. (did this without setting up my name for it)

This part doesn't work
7. Set it up for the menu and launch - Download download/file.php?id=19427
8. Left click on the downloaded file "OpenOffice_portable-menus.pet"
9. When asked if you want to install - click yes
10. It will place:

• "OpenOffice Draw" in Graphic

• "OpenOffice Impress" in Document

• "OpenOffice 4" in Document

• "OpenOffice Writer" in Document

• "OpenOffice 4 Base" in Business

• "OpenOffice 4 Calc" in Business

• "OpenOffice Math" in Business

• "OpenOffice Quickstarter" in Business

[JusGellin]

I would still like to know how to get and use OpenOfice as an sfs.
Can someone show me how?

Thanks

[JusGellin]

Is there an OpenOffice sfs available to use for BookwormPup?
Or does it have to be built? Perhaps the pet version is the best to use?

Also is there an area on the forum that lists sfs's?

Thanks

[mikeslr]

I would still like to know how to get and use OpenOfice as an sfs.
Can someone show me how?

Thanks

(1) Create a folder named OpenOffice. Optionally add the version number to that name, e.g. "OpenOffice-4.1.15"
(2) Within that folder create another folder named opt.
(3) Download the deb of the latest version of OpenOffice from here, https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html.
(4) Use UExtract or pExtract to extract it.
(5) Rename the extracted folder to just 'OpenOffice' and copy/move that entire extracted folder into the opt folder you created in step 2.
(6) Extract the menu pet you attached in your post above.
(7) Copy its folders into the folder you created in step 1.
(8) Double check that the Exec= arguments in /usr/share/applications point to the executable scripts in /opt/OpenOffice-4.1.15/program. [I didn't.]
(9) Right-Click the folder you created in step 1 and select 'dir2sfs' from the pop-up menu. An SFS will be created.

Variations of the above recipe can be used to create SFSes of most applications.

[JusGellin]

@mikeslr
Well I'm not as far as I thought.
I've found the only thing that works is the running the OpenOfice Portable.
I can run the different types - Draw, Calc etc.
But when I tried to run the OpenOffice portable menus pet, it installs the different menus, but none work.

When I tried to run your steps for the sfs, nothing worked.
But just trying to run the download would give error for each of the apps saying "Error: Dependency is not satisfiable.
I did select the Debian version to match Bookworm.

So again the only thing I can get to work is the OpenOffice portable.
Could it be that the menu pet doesn't work for BookwormPup?

It looks like I could use some troubleshooting help for the menu part in BookwormPup
and also making the OpenOffice download work for making the sfs.

Thanks for your help. I hope you or someone can help me further.

[JusGellin]

@mikeslr

Here's my go again. I can make the portable work with the menu pet by including one extra step
Once the portable OpenOffice works,
you need to right click the OpenOffice icon to "Look Inside",
Then select "MenuAdd"
After that, run the OpenOffice menu pet.
Now the menus will work.

When I get back I will detail how to make the portable work with menus again.

Then I would like to again accomplish making the sfs work, with your help, @mikeslr .

[mikewalsh]

@JusGellin :-

You'll find that Mikeslr's 'Menu-entries.pet' is built to work the way the 'standard' install expects it, i.e., what you would end up with IF you installed all those tiny little .deb packages individually. The individual menu entries point to the specific launch scripts for each of those individual components.

It won't work with my 'portable' version, because it's constructed in a different way. Rather than build a whole bunch of separate menu entries for all the individual components, the MenuAdd script found inside the portable creates a single entry.....which points to the OpenOffice 'StartCenter' instead. You choose your application from here.

(Incidentally, by placing the portable in /opt, you're completely defeating the whole point of the 'portables'.....this being to keep the bulk of any app's data OUTSIDE the 'save'. You've gone and stuck yours inside the save.

If you don't like the concept of the portables - and the way they work - the answer is very simple. Don't use them! Nobody's twisting your arm...)

I've used the existing multi-launcher provided BY OpenOffice themselves. Yes, I COULD build a whole bunch of individual Menu entries, but I haven't, in the interests of the K.I.S.S principle. I'm SURE you know what THAT means!

You're quite free to build your own packages, of course. This is one of those things that is positively encouraged by the community; it's not within everyone's abilities, but if you can produce packages - that will work for everybody - then that's great.....and is seen as a "good thing".

Have a go! You might even find you quite enjoy the process...

Mike.

[JusGellin]

@mikewalsh
Thanks for your information.

Mostly I'm just trying to do things so I can understand what does and what doesn't work and am more than willing to try suggestions. I'm
still really new to all of this and want to understand.

Now that I understand how your portable app works I now know that it is set up just for the general menu system that OpenOffice has.
I didn't realize that before since when I added it and it came up it didn't appear in the menu at all. So that's when I saw the suggestion to use the menu pet
to try to get them. So I tried that, but they didn't work.

I didn't know what to do. So I saw that I could "look Inside" by right clicking the OpenOffice icon, and that there was a selection called "MenuAdd"
that made all the menus work.
But I understand now that your intent is just to have the one menu to bring up its own built in OpenOffice menu.
Should that have happened automatically, because it didn't for me?

I do like the idea of using portables as well.

To show my newness, I still don't fully understand what goes into the save and what doesn't. That's why I picked /opt for the portable.
I did want to keep it out of the save.
Where would be the best place to put it so it isn't included in the save?

Again, thanks for helping me see things better. I really like the capabilities of PuppyLinux.

[mikewalsh]

@JusGellin :-

Best place to put them? We recommend /mnt/home, usually.....alongside the base Puppy SFS, the save-file/folder, vmlinuz, the zdrv. This works best for anyone running their Puppy from a flash drive; still "outside" the 'save', yet on the same drive (which keeps the entire install 'portable').

If you're running Pup from an internal drive, you can literally put these anywhere you want. Just keep it out of the main file-system. You can run them from any other internal drive. You can run them from an external USB HDD/SSD, or a flash drive. So long as they're formatted with a Linux file-system, you're laughing.

Hope that clarifies a wee bit more for you!

Mike.

[JusGellin]

I would still like to know how to get and use OpenOfice as an sfs.
Can someone show me how?

Thanks

(1) Create a folder named OpenOffice. Optionally add the version number to that name, e.g. "OpenOffice-4.1.15"
(2) Within that folder create another folder named opt.
(3) Download the deb of the latest version of OpenOffice from here, https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html.
(4) Use UExtract or pExtract to extract it.
(5) Rename the extracted folder to just 'OpenOffice' and copy/move that entire extracted folder into the opt folder you created in step 2.
(6) Extract the menu pet you attached in your post above.
(7) Copy its folders into the folder you created in step 1.
(8) Double check that the Exec= arguments in /usr/share/applications point to the executable scripts in /opt/OpenOffice-4.1.15/program. [I didn't.]
(9) Right-Click the folder you created in step 1 and select 'dir2sfs' from the pop-up menu. An SFS will be created.

Variations of the above recipe can be used to create SFSes of most applications.

@mikeslr
I followed this exactly as I thought, but it doesn't seem to fully work for me.
I did this for a frugal install of BookwormPup that didn't have OpenOffice installed
After I completed step 9, I left clicked on the OpenOffice sfs and installed the sfs.
Then I rebooted.
When it came up, it had the menus for OpenOffice, but selecting them didn't do anything.
Looking at /usr/share/applications, I see the desktop menu items, but there are two sets of them.
One set are links to /opt/openoffice4/share/xdg/base... items.
If I click on them they take me to the selected item successfully.

Then the other set of menu items seem to be the ones the menu uses, but don't have the proper path like the instructions indicated and I fixed.
Each of those items have Exec=openoffice -..item instead.

So I'm almost there, but not quite with the menu selections.

How can I fix this part?

Thanks for your help.

[mikewalsh]

@JusGellin :-

Nope. The above will NOT work. Looks to me like @mikeslr only "skimmed" the downloads page for OpenOffice and didn't examine it any more closely. He saw "DEB" listed, wrongly assumed it was a single item, and got stuck into writing his tutorial, above.

Yes, the 'drop-down' selector for the downloads does indeed list a 64-bit DEB. However, unless you actually download this yourself you will never be aware that the "DEB" download in fact gives you a tarball. This tarball needs to be unzipped.....at which point you then discover around 40 some-odd tiny little .debs, all of which have to be installed individually, OR individually extracted and the SFS "working directory" painstakingly built from this mess of extracted items.

I could probably do it, though it wouldn't be an enjoyable process. The above tarball full of .debs is NOT 'standard practice', but is unique to Open Office. Why the hell they did it this way beats me; perhaps it's better for their development process, but it's not very user-friendly when downloading/installing yourself. Package managers will be working with the same items, but there the entire process is at least automated.

OpenOffice is NOT the best one for a "newbie" packager to 'cut their teeth' on!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@OscarTalks posted about the way HE tackles OpenOffice, here:-

viewtopic.php?p=101343#p101343

It's the same method I use; it's fiddly, and time-consuming, but you do end up with a correctly-installed 'openoffice4' directory under /opt, which you can then copy over to somewhere 'safe' while you re-boot back into your regular Puppy. THEN, you're ready to build a "normal" package.....either .pet OR SFS, whichever you want. The rest of this process is pretty straight-forward after that...

Mike.

[JusGellin]

@mikewalsh
Whew! thanks for the info.
Things just aren't clear for what I can and cannot do.
I just try to go by the tips everyone gives me.
It makes me get used to doing things myself though.
I'm going to try doing this with LibreOffice next.

[mikewalsh]

@JusGellin :-

Don't get discouraged. Most packages are a lot simpler to create yourself....but OpenOffice is NOT one I would pick for a 'first attempt'! I've been packaging stuff for Puppy for several years, and this particular one even cheeses ME off.

It's a nice office suite.....but the installation process is unnecessarily 'over-complicated', and anything BUT 'user-friendly'.

Mike.

EDIT:- If you'd still like to do this for yourself - and indeed, why not? - I would recommend following OscarTalks' method to obtain the properly-installed 'openoffice4' directory FIRST. Get that done, then come back here - WITH your 'openoffice4' directory - and we'll guide you through the rest of the process. When you've done this once, it will be good experience for your next attempt. It honestly doesn't take long to get the hang of it, and you'll find it's easier than it at first appears. There's even GUI tools for the actual package creation/building, and you'll soon develop your own 'work-flow' & routine for doing all this.

I would recommend creating a dedicated 'work-area' for doing this stuff. It needs to be at least a couple of GB in size.

There's nothing quite like the thrill of installing & using a correctly-functioning package that you've built yourself!

[ozsouth]

@JusGellin - I made a libreoffice 6.4 .pet & just tested it in Bookwormpup64. Is 180mb. Use at own risk.
See: https://www.mediafire.com/file/np6teh69 ... o.pet/file
Once downloaded, click on .pet in filemanager. Will take up to a minute to install. Puts entry in the Document menu.
Is set to US. To change that once started, go to: tools/options/language settings/languages - edit locale & western settings.

[JusGellin]

@ozsouth
That worked beautifully.
Thanks

Now, just to help me learn more, I'm going to try making an sfs of it.
Is there any instruction to help do this?

Thanks

[ozsouth]

@JusGellin - I suggested the .pet because it is neater. I have an sfs of it, but in Bookworm64 it doesn't put an entry in the Menu.
Once sfs loaded, you have to make an icon by navigating to /apps/libreoffice6.4/program via the filemanager & dragging soffice to the desktop.
sfs is here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/gk8un6fv ... o.sfs/file . Use at own risk.
Note: abiword & gnumeric remain defaults unless you edit /usr/local/bin/defaultwordprocessor & /usr/local/bin/defaultspreadsheet respectively.

[JusGellin]

Hello @mikeslr
I followed your procedure below but couldn't get it to fully work. What do you have in mind to make this work?
It doesn't install all the debs. I saw the installation procedure from OpenOffice mentions to run dpkg -i *.deb manually to install the debs
- which works to be able to bring OpenOffice up from a terminal using openoffice4 command.
It doesn't come up with any icon
The menu pet doesn't install any menus

I'm curious if this is working for you?
I can get the portable version to work, but I wanted to be able to get the sfs version to work as well for OpenOffice.
Thanks

I would still like to know how to get and use OpenOfice as an sfs.
Can someone show me how?

Thanks

(1) Create a folder named OpenOffice. Optionally add the version number to that name, e.g. "OpenOffice-4.1.15"
(2) Within that folder create another folder named opt.
(3) Download the deb of the latest version of OpenOffice from here, https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html.
(4) Use UExtract or pExtract to extract it.
(5) Rename the extracted folder to just 'OpenOffice' and copy/move that entire extracted folder into the opt folder you created in step 2.
(6) Extract the menu pet you attached in your post above.
(7) Copy its folders into the folder you created in step 1.
(8) Double check that the Exec= arguments in /usr/share/applications point to the executable scripts in /opt/OpenOffice-4.1.15/program. [I didn't.]
(9) Right-Click the folder you created in step 1 and select 'dir2sfs' from the pop-up menu. An SFS will be created.

Variations of the above recipe can be used to create SFSes of most applications.

[HarveyH]

Would you settle for a click-and-go AppImage version?
Check out this link. 2nd post.

viewtopic.php?t=12396

[JusGellin]

@HarveyH
Thanks. That is really impressive!!
It works instantly - pretty cool.

So I've run this and the pet versions successfully and easily. How would these update to a newer version in the future?

I'm still trying to learn how to do these things to help me understand my way around puppy linux.
In my learning I still would like to try making the sfs version work as well so I could use this method for other apps if I needed to.

Why can't I get the sfs version to work for me?

[darksun]

Is there an OpenOffice sfs or pet?
How can I use it in BookwormPup?

Thanks

I can see you are using bookwormpup.

Just out of curiosity, few questions:

1) libreoffice is far superior and more up to date compared to openoffice (IMO), why are you choosing the latter?

2) if you choose to use libreoffice, why you want to use a .pet or sfs?

from terminal:

Code: Select all

apt install libreoffice

and you install it, the latest stable version, and all its dependencies.

Code: Select all

apt update ; apt full-upgrade

if available, you will install, among others, the latest libreoffice updates.

Furthermore you save the hassle of managing the .sfs and .pet.

if I am missing something, please let me know why no one mentioned about using apt.
@dimkr and @radky are doing a great job with the development of vanilladpup and bookwormpup, so why not using their full potential? I am confused.

PS: I still see a lot of users relying of fetching software that is uploaded to online shared drivers (cloud, such as mediafire, google drive) . For security reasons people should install software from official sources, using their software manager first (apt, in this case) or downloading from the software's official website. That is best practice aiming to minimize the risk of installing malware. This is for your information and benefit.

[mikeslr]

Dah. Yes, Mikewalsh was right. https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 35#p128235. Well, almost. I was relying on my flaky memory. Left-out the extraction of the deb-step, which was followed by (there being about 80 debs in the extraction folder) using PaDS, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=933, to combine them.

Sorry, about that.

[JusGellin]

@darksun
What you are asking is very valid.

What I'm trying to do for this is setting up a portable USB stick that I can use on different computers.
So I wanted to know how to set up this part with OpenOffice, since I used it before to try
using it as an install, a pet, an appimage and also an sfs.
(I appreciate your preference for LibreOffice, which I will use by what you mention for it to be more up to date)

I just wanted to make what @mikeslr suggested for making OpenOffice sfs work.
I thought this would be a good way for me to learn how to do it this way and if there were problems to it,
to be helped to figure them out.

[darksun]

if on those computers you have internet connection a solution could be

from terminal

Code: Select all

apt update ; apt install libreoffice

and save the changes in the hard drive at shutdown.

Another solution is to get the libreoffice portable version, appimage , here

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/appimage

You can copy it into the usb stick and carry it with you.

EDIT: @JusGellin forgot to mention, after you have downloaded it you will need to make it executable , open a terminal where the .appimage file is

Code: Select all

chmod +x LibreOffice*AppImage

[JusGellin]

@mikeslr
I see our last posts were very close to each other.

Dah. Yes, Mikewalsh was right. https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 35#p128235. Well, almost. I was relying on my flaky memory. Left-out the extraction of the deb-step, which was followed by (there being about 80 debs in the extraction folder) using PaDS, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=933, to combine them.

Sorry, about that.

Now this new thing to me is intriguing - PaDS. So that's what it is used for then, huh?
If this isn't worthwhile to do, don't worry about it. It just would be interesting to me to see how you would make this work anyway.

Thanks always for your help.

[mikewalsh]

@darksun :-

Oh dear. I can see that you STILL haven't quite "sussed-out" the Puppy "ethos" yet, have you?

You're thinking of Puppy in the same light as, and comparing it with every other mainstream Linux distro out there.....all of which are always installed to their own, dedicated partition, and have teams of developers, who have expended hundreds, if not thousands of man-hours developing proper, correct, "officially-recognised" ways of doing everything (so for your own 'safety', why WOULDN'T you want to do things the "official" way?) You're also over-looking the rather large "elephant in the corner of the room".....the Puppy 'save'-file/folder. Most of us do our level best to keep this as lean as possible.....hugely important to anyone running elderly hardware with limited resources. Installing stuff from the repos all the time always puts all this into the 'save', rapidly expanding it to enormous proportions. And that in itself has encouraged development of alternative ways of doing things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's only in the last 2-3 years that current Puppies have begun to use an official package management system.....in this case, Synaptic. By and large, it works as it should, even under Puppy.

Prior to this, we largely relied upon the PPM. This 'worked' - sort of! - but because the repos were from the 'parent' distro, they were of course set-up to assume things were being installed TO the 'parent' distro.....and due in part to Puppy's somewhat unique way of doing a lot of stuff, frequently apps had to be 'modified' - sometimes, quite a bit - in order to function under Puppy. Puppy uses binaries'n'stuff from the 'parent' distro, but she doesn't always work quite the same as the parent. This encouraged a LOT of 'in-house' modification, and people tended to share these from private, cloud-hosting accounts.

In my own case, I - along with plenty of assistance from other community members - have developed a method for packaging many applications in 'portable' format. This is mainly to ameliorate the fact of the Puppy save file/folder becoming unmanageable if it gets TOO big, by locating the bulk of an app's data outside the 'save'. You're not going to find stuff like this in any 'official' repo, no matter HOW hard you look, so I share these from a cloud account. My MEGA.nz a/c is full of nothing BUT these 'portable' applications.

Then, too, many of us who are proficient at scripting frequently develop unique applications to fill a specific, perceived 'need'. Again, you won't find THESE in any 'official' repo......and if they 'work', we like to 'share' these, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those of us who have used Puppy for any length of time rather like the way she works, and many of us wouldn't have it any other way. Puppy may seem chaotic & disorganized to anyone used to the relatively ordered existence of a mainstream distro, but once you get the hang of things she becomes VERY addictive!

But I wouldn't really expect you to understand this. You obviously have your own rather firm views on this, and I wouldn't for one moment expect anything we might say to change your mind.

It's YOUR loss. (*shrug...*)

Mike.

[HarveyH]

@JusGellin

@HarveyH
Thanks. That is really impressive!!
It works instantly - pretty cool.

So I've run this and the pet versions successfully and easily. How would these update to a newer version in the future?

Well, as you saw in the post, Dude said, "I just made this". My guess is that when a new versions comes out, you contact him and ask if he made a new one.
BTW, that wasn't sarcasm. I think it's the only way to get an update besides making your own AppImage or searching for one on the interwebs.

Yeah, AppImages are cool. They are kinda like universal installs. An app with all dependencies in one package that wiill as-is run on most Linuxes. They are fast, but can also be huge.
Puppy, being a lovable weirdo, wont run all of them though.