the great thing about freebsd is ports - you don't have to deal with failed compiles, dependency hell, and having to download and install all sorts of files, or so i thought.

after being very satisfied with freebsd's ports system, i decided i should use it to install an office suite. i cded to /usr/ports/editors/openoffice-1.1/ and did a "make install clean". i expected it to take a while, so i let it do its job. after downloading and compiling this and that for a little while, it ran into an error, which was fairly easy to solve: i had to download some java file and place it in /usr/ports/distfiles.

after having to go through a sort of annoying registration process with sun.com, i got the file and put it where it belonged. "make install clean" again, and after a little while, it ran into a similar problem again, but with a slightly different file (still java). anyways, this kept happening, about 4 times or so.

so this evening i did "make install clean" again after getting another file. it worked for a little over 10 minutes, and got to an error, different from the ones before:

i couldn't copy+paste the output cause it wasn't in x, but it was something like above. it didn't really give me any clue as to what to do next, so i guess i can't get openoffice through ports? i thought something like that would work. please inform me.

You need to first install a linux java port, such as linux-sun-jdk14, then follow the instructions to install a native java port such as jdk14 (yes, that's annoying and complex.) Then try installing openoffice.

oh, i see.... thanks!

ok, that got me through about a half hour of compilation and then ended on a bunch of "{standard input}:..." errors. also something else about
error making /usr/ports/editors/openofice-1.1/work/oo_1.1.2_src/jvmaccess/source
dmake: Error code 1, while making 'build_all'

What I did when I used OpenOffice with FreeBSD was a pkg_add from openoffice.org. You will need to look at the site and get the url information for the exact version that is made for your version of FreeBSD, 4.x or 5.x. If you need some more help, let me know and I will look up the information and post it here.

It's quite possible that you're running out of RAM or disk space in /usr. The Java port is enormous and takes well over 1GB of free space in /usr to build.

i was running pretty low on ram when it was compiling (8MB free), but for the last 10 minutes or so before it failed, there was about 50-60MB free. i've got 27GB free in /usr though.

i'll try pkg_add.

"pkg_add http://projects.imp.ch/openoffice/cu...ce-1.1.0_1.tbz"

it fetched the package, but then ran into an error immediately. i don't have exactly what it said, but it was something about a localized version - that if i had installed the english version and switched to a localized version, it will crash instantly. it said the solution was to remove something from .sversionrc (which doesn't exist), and delete the openoffice directory in my home folder (which also doesn't exist). so i cded to /usr/ports/editors/openoffice-1.1 and did a "make deinstall", which ran into errors (couldn't delete this and that directory in /usr/local/something something), but seemed to work sort of. "make clean", and i gained about 2GB of free space back. i tried pkg_add again and the exact same error. blah, this is difficult...

oops, i didn't mean to make that a link

can you post the info you were talking about gorilla because i can't seem to get this to work and i can't find a solution via google.

This is the correct way to do this
" "pkg_add http://projects.imp.ch/openoffice/c...ice-1.1.0_1.tbz" "

The limitations according to the OpenOffice.org website for FreeBSD are listed on this page.
OOo 1.1.2 for 4.10 and 5.2.1-RELEASE, which means you can only have one or the other I bellieve.

http://oootranslation.services.openo...omisc/FreeBSD/
This link will take you to the page where you can choose which version of OO you want.

You then choose which version you want and then you put that file name EXACTLY after the pkg_add, or you can download the the file and using a terminal, logged in as root, do the pkg_add on your system. Make sure you grap the MP5 to make sure it is ok.

I hope this helps,

thank you, i'll try that out when i get a chance.

i did the command you listed above about "pkg_add http://..." but i never checked out that link you just gave me. i'll report back if it works....

i was having too much trouble installing the newer version of openoffice, but i managed to get 1.0.3 up and running. thank you all for the help.