OOo is a fairly independent package and you are arguably better off with Sun's version than with ubuntu's version; some (many?) threads on
OOoforum.org about problems with ubuntu's package result in solution by switching to Sun's package.
I switched, on ubuntu 8.04, from ubuntu's 2.0.4 to Sun's 3.1.0 and the only package-related issues I had were:
- Losing the openoffice man page. No great loss, it wasn't complete and using the -h, -help or -? options of the soffice command gives almost as much information.
- A different location of the config file. Details below.
Here's a
fuller list of packages differences.
It is prudent to remove the ubuntu OOo packages before installing Sun's. First gotcha; there are more than just openoffice.org. I ended up using the following command (as root)
Code:
aptitude remove `dpkg -l | grep 'openoffice.org-' | cut -d ' ' -f3`
If you prefer to use Synaptic you can get the names of the packages to remove using
Code:
root@CW8:~# dpkg -l | grep 'openoffice.org-' | cut -d ' ' -f3
Apart from the obviously OOo packages the above also un-installed
- language-support-en
- language-support-translations-en
- language-support-writing-en
- python-uno
and it installed "thunderbird [2.0.0.21+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 (hardy-updates)]". UNO Is an OOo programing interface so I guess python-uno is specific to OOo. Don't know about the language-support-*en packages but I went ahead anyway and nothing seems to have broken, 3 months later.
Installing the new package follows the usual steps except for the desktop-integration package being in a sub-directory. These commands were run as root and are for 3.1.0 so you'll need to modify for 3.1.1 (but some of the 3.1.1 paths include 3.1.0 -- go figure).
Code:
tar xzvf OOo_3.1.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz
cd OOO310_m11_native_packed-4_en-US.9399/DEBS
dpkg -i *.deb
cd desktop-integration/
dpkg -i *.deb
I got a warning message of no consequence:
dpkg - warning: while removing openoffice.org-ure, unable to remove directory `/opt': Device or resource busy - directory may be a mount point ?
If you are upgrading from OOo 2.x to 3.1.1 you may get quite some breakage, caused by the version change rather than by the change of package supplier. Maybe 3.1.1 is better in this respect. Changing from 2.4.1 to 3.1.0, I ended up discarding all my earlier customisation and starting from scratch.
The config file is moved from /etc/openoffice/sofficerc to /opt/openoffice.org3/program/sofficerc (no longer FHS-compliant -- that's something ubuntu try to stick with. You could always make /opt/openoffice.org3/program/sofficerc an symlink to /etc/openoffice/sofficerc. I didn't bother.)
OOo 3.x introduced its own file save dialogues. If you prefer to use your desktop's own: Tools, Options, General, OpenOffice.org, then clear "Use OpenOffice.org dialogs".
OOo 3.x introduced (too) smart auto-formatting of dates in Writer tables. Turn it off by Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org Writer->Table and, in the Input in tables section, untick "Number recognition".
In Writer, numbered and bulleted lists created under 2.4.x displayed OK but were mangled when modifieded. Workaround by removing the list formatting and re-applying.
Some months later I found a symlink without a target (/usr/share/applications/openoffice.org3-startcenter.desktop) and removed it. Tthe only effect of the broken link that I noticed was an error message in a log.
