Saturday, January 29, 2011

How to Replace Your OpenOffice With LibreOffice In Ubuntu

I run Kubuntu Linux, the KDE-based variant of Ubuntu. I had OpenOffice.org v3.2 installed as my primary office suite. Both OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice have just released version 3.3 of their respective office suites. For those that don't know, LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice.org over concerns about how Oracle would deal with OpenOffice.org after purchasing Sun Microsystems, the publisher of both OpenOffice.org and the Java programming language. A group of OpenOffice.org developers formed The Document Foundation to create a more open development model going forward; LibreOffice v3.3.0 is their first release.

The LibreOffice downloads for Linux from the official site are tarballs, generic Linux install files. For Ubuntu and other Debian derivatives, they should be .deb files; for maximum compatibility they should be installed through apt, but LibreOffice is not yet available from the official Ubuntu repositories. The solution to this issue is a PPA. There is now a PPA available to install LibreOffice in Ubuntu and its derivatives. This article shows how, step-by-step:
Quick Tip: How to Replace Your OpenOffice With LibreOffice In Ubuntu

If you are not already aware, you can often save a lot of typing by simply using copy-and-paste (link is to my article) to enter each command into a terminal window.

This technique worked well for me. LibreOffice seems to be humming along just fine!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

Disclaimer

Although I am currently the Chairman of the Special Interest Group-Linux of the SouthEast Michigan Computer Organization, this blog does not reflect anyone's views but my own. SEMCO, its members, and its SIG-Linux are not responsible for this blog or its content. That having been said, I will be posting herein articles based on my presentations to the Group--plus opinions, facts, and occasional wild speculation & flights of fancy (most of which [I hope!] will be related to Linux).