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New to linux-Help installing OpenOffice on Debian 5.06

J

JWMiddleton

Diamond Member
Last night I dl'ed and installed Debian 5.06. I was amazed at how easy it installed and everything works great. Well, I was feeling pretty proud of myself, so I decided to add OpenOffice to the mix. This process has confirmed why linux is not for the masses.

On wiki.debian.org/openoffice it states: To install OpenOffice, do the following:

aptitude update
aptitude install openoffice.org

The above didn't work until I typed su and a password. Stuff I learned 20 years ago in a SVR4 class.

Then it says that the launcher for writer is: /usr/bin/oowriter - uhh, where is my cute little Writer icon?

So, any ideas what I should do.

BTW: I am just playing with this for a class I'm taking.
 
In order to install software system wide you need to have root privileges, otherwise you can't put the files in the correct locations.

What desktop environment are you using? That's where you need to be looking for your icons to launch it, in gnome most apps get a shortcut in your 'Applications' menu.

Debian is an awesome OS, but if you want something a bit easier to get installed and working I would recommend the latest Ubuntu. It's going to be the same as Debian as far as managing and running except is has a much larger set of better default options and software installed.
 
JWMiddleton said:
Last night I dl'ed and installed Debian 5.06. I was amazed at how easy it installed and everything works great. Well, I was feeling pretty proud of myself, so I decided to add OpenOffice to the mix. This process has confirmed why linux is not for the masses.

On wiki.debian.org/openoffice it states: To install OpenOffice, do the following:

aptitude update
aptitude install openoffice.org

The above didn't work until I typed su and a password. Stuff I learned 20 years ago in a SVR4 class.

Then it says that the launcher for writer is: /usr/bin/oowriter - uhh, where is my cute little Writer icon?

So, any ideas what I should do.

BTW: I am just playing with this for a class I'm taking.
Click to expand...

If you would've done the installation via the GUI installer, synaptic, you would've been prompted for your password automatically and there should be an icon placed in the menus automatically.
 
Crusty said:
In order to install software system wide you need to have root privileges, otherwise you can't put the files in the correct locations.

What desktop environment are you using? That's where you need to be looking for your icons to launch it, in gnome most apps get a shortcut in your 'Applications' menu.

Debian is an awesome OS, but if you want something a bit easier to get installed and working I would recommend the latest Ubuntu. It's going to be the same as Debian as far as managing and running except is has a much larger set of better default options and software installed.
Click to expand...

Thanks Crusty, I am using GNOME as my windowing environment, which I assume you were asking. It came up by default. I am more than willing to install other version of linux, but I'd really like to get this issue worked out first.

After reading your reply I found the root terminal and re-ran the stuff I did twice earlier. I still don't have OpenOffice installed. I did check the Applications drop down menu. Any other suggestions?
 
Nothinman said:
If you would've done the installation via the GUI installer, synaptic, you would've been prompted for your password automatically and there should be an icon placed in the menus automatically.
Click to expand...

Thanks Nothinman, Is synaptic part of Debian? I've look on my system and online and don't find it, other than references to using it.
 
JWMiddleton said:
Thanks Nothinman, Is synaptic part of Debian? I've look on my system and online and don't find it, other than references to using it.
Click to expand...

Yea, it should be there. The icon may be called something generic like Package Manager though. I don't use a full Gnome desktop so I'm not sure what the icon shows up as.
 
It should be under System - Administration as "Add/Remove Software" or somesuch I think the last time I reinstalled it wad at least.
 
Well, I have not had any luck. Under Admin drop down menu I don't find either of the items you two refered to. So, I'm going to try fedora 13 as I was able to find a DVD with the install and lots of goodies at B&N. There seems to be more published on fedora, which I hope will help. Thanks!
 
JWMiddleton said:
Well, I have not had any luck. Under Admin drop down menu I don't find either of the items you two refered to. So, I'm going to try fedora 13 as I was able to find a DVD with the install and lots of goodies at B&N. There seems to be more published on fedora, which I hope will help. Thanks!
Click to expand...

If you type synaptic from bash does it start up? I'm really surprised that you can't find it, Debian was probably the first distro to do the automatic menu updating stuff and it still even does it for me here running Enlightenment. It's under Applications->System->Package Management here.
 
Nothinman said:
If you type synaptic from bash does it start up? I'm really surprised that you can't find it, Debian was probably the first distro to do the automatic menu updating stuff and it still even does it for me here running Enlightenment. It's under Applications->System->Package Management here.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd tried that. Both as regular user and SU. Since then I've installed fedora 13. It had OOo as part of the install, but now I'm having issue trying to install Adobe Flash.

How do I tell if fedora installed the 32 or 64-bit version?
 
JWMiddleton said:
Yeah, I'd tried that. Both as regular user and SU. Since then I've installed fedora 13. It had OOo as part of the install, but now I'm having issue trying to install Adobe Flash.

How do I tell if fedora installed the 32 or 64-bit version?
Click to expand...

Their big download button seems to default to 32-bit, i.e. i686.
 
Based on the info above about package manager, I was able to find info to install Smart Package Manager. It was on the system and simply needed to be installed. Here is the info:

For the smart GUI:

su -c 'yum -y install smart-gui'

I also got Adobe Flash installed. It would not work with the .yum file, but did work with the .rpm downloadable file. No idea what I'm doing, but slowly getting things to work.

Now, about the only thing I'm missing is a MPEG 3 Layer-1 (mp3) decoder. Any suggestions?
 
Does Fedora have something like restricted extras that are in Ubuntu? I've never used it, but poke around in the package manager, and see if there's some restricted repositories that can be enabled.
 
JWMiddleton said:
Based on the info above about package manager, I was able to find info to install Smart Package Manager. It was on the system and simply needed to be installed. Here is the info:

For the smart GUI:

su -c 'yum -y install smart-gui'

I also got Adobe Flash installed. It would not work with the .yum file, but did work with the .rpm downloadable file. No idea what I'm doing, but slowly getting things to work.

Now, about the only thing I'm missing is a MPEG 3 Layer-1 (mp3) decoder. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I never liked the idea of things like Smart Package Manager, my system already has a package manager so why should I need another?
 
Nothinman said:
I never liked the idea of things like Smart Package Manager, my system already has a package manager so why should I need another?
Click to expand...

Your question brings up an interesting point that I've been dealing with. People giving help make a LOT of assumptions. I stated that I was new to linux. It was suggested that I use a package manager, without saying how to access it. I looked in the availble menus and nothing stood out as being such a program. I then searched the web for help and found out how to activate one on fedora 13. I had no idea that it was not the one you were talking about. The program was obviously on my computer and simply needed to be installed. Now when I dl a new package I get the option to open it in Smart.
 
JWMiddleton said:
Your question brings up an interesting point that I've been dealing with. People giving help make a LOT of assumptions. I stated that I was new to linux. It was suggested that I use a package manager, without saying how to access it. I looked in the availble menus and nothing stood out as being such a program. I then searched the web for help and found out how to activate one on fedora 13. I had no idea that it was not the one you were talking about. The program was obviously on my computer and simply needed to be installed. Now when I dl a new package I get the option to open it in Smart.
Click to expand...

I can't believe that you somehow managed to install Debian with a Gnome desktop without synaptic unless you explicitly removed it. I never use it because I always just opt for aptitude and it's on all of my systems with Gnome. And I know that Fedora also has a Gnome front end to yum/rpm installed by default, although I don't know what they call the icon.

I really think you're just over thinking these things because it's Linux and you expect it to be complicated. But that's not how it is these days, it's not 1998 any more.
 
Code: 
# apt-get install openoffice.org

Using either the text or graphic Debian installer gives you a choice of software 'bundles'(ie: desktop, laptop, server etc) to choose from; otherwise you'd get a base install.. That in itself would not be a problem, just that you'd end up installing everything manually.
 
Thanks for all of the input and help! I played with fedora 13 for a few days and was learning a good bit, but was aggrevated that it was a pain to get an MP3 codec. So, on Sunday morning I started again with the lastest Kubuntu 10.10 release with KDE as the GUI.

I FINALLY had a package manager and could see what all of you were talking about. I've installed GIMP and Audacity from the package manager and love the way it handles dependenies.

Thanks again!
 
JWMiddleton said:
Thanks for all of the input and help! I played with fedora 13 for a few days and was learning a good bit, but was aggrevated that it was a pain to get an MP3 codec. So, on Sunday morning I started again with the lastest Kubuntu 10.10 release with KDE as the GUI.

I FINALLY had a package manager and could see what all of you were talking about. I've installed GIMP and Audacity from the package manager and love the way it handles dependenies.

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

You have the same package manager as before, the only difference is going to be the default set of apps you have installed. And like I said, I have no idea how you managed to not install synaptic in your Debian install if you asked for a full Gnome desktop.
 
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