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Re: OpenOffice, the next hurdle

To: Chris <cditri@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: OpenOffice, the next hurdle
From: Bob Beck <beck@bofh.cns.ualberta.ca>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:41:56 -0700
Cc: misc@openbsd.org
In-reply-to: <423CBD02.7020905@comcast.net>
Mail-followup-to: Chris <cditri@comcast.net>, misc@openbsd.org
References: <423CBD02.7020905@comcast.net>
Sender: owner-misc@openbsd.org
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.6i
        My advice? Install abiword and gnumeric and use those.

        While they are both still 800 pound gorillas in terms of
software, "Open"Office is a morbidly obese elephant. I've not known
anyone who has made it work.

        -Bob
                

* Chris <cditri@comcast.net> [2005-03-19 20:30]:
> Okay.
> 
> Much to my surprise, it appears that OpenOffice does not run on OBSD.  I
> noticed that it does run on FreeBSD, but since I am a noob to BSD (I
> know nothing about freebsd and next to nothing about OBSD), I have no
> idea how those systems differ.  I have read scattered threads here and
> other places that it is possible to run OpenOffice through linux emulation.
> 
> So, I spent the last few hours looking into linux emulation.  I have
> printed out all of the docs, and have them in a binder.  I have been
> reading straight through as I build my system.  I didn't see much about
> the appropriate way to set up linux emulation (It is briefly mentioned
> in chapter 9.4 of the Docs).  I have poked around the net, and could not
> find anything recent on the issue, so finally I found a man page on my
> obsd 3.6 system that discussed it:  compat_linux.
> 
> I have done my best to make certain I have followed its recommendations,
> but it is a bit sparse with regards to what steps to take here.  I have
> used ports to install redhat libraries.  I have edited my
> /etc/sysctl.conf and uncommented "kern.emul.linux=1".
> 
> Now, there is some mention about using procfs in that man page, and I
> have sniffed all over the internet.  I can find nothing conclusive on
> *how* to use it for this purpose.  There is no /proc in BSD.  There is
> no /emul/linux/proc either.  I don't know if there is a file/image
> somewhere that I am supposed to mount, or if I just mount proc to proc.
> Should I make a /proc and/or a /emul/linux/proc?  I beleive I understand
> the syntax, I just don't know what arguments to use, where to mount it
> or what to mount.  For shits and giggles, I did made a /proc and a
> /emul/linux/proc and did this: mount_procfs -o linux /proc /proc;
> mount_procfs -o linux /emul/linux/proc /emul/linux/proc.  I have no idea
> how close this is to anything useful.
> 
> I sacrificed my OO on my Gentoo linux system.  I completely uninstalled
> it because it was compiled for an Athlon system and I didn't want to
> introduce more vairables than necessary since this is my first time with
> linux emu.  I downloaded the standard i386 binary installer for OO, and
> installed it.  I tared that up, and scp'd it to my OBSD box.  I
> ucompressed the tarball under /emul/linux/usr/OpenOffice.  I cd to that
> directory, and I find the link to the executable.  I issue this
> command:  "./soffice".  My hard drive starts crunching for a few
> seconds, then it bombs out, complaining that it cannot find
> "libXext.so.6".
> 
> Now, I know I have that file on my system, it lives here:
> /usr/local/redhat/emul/usr/X11R6/lib -- which sound right to me.
> 
> My confusion:
> 
> 1) I don't know if there is supposed to be some environmental variable
> to set a path for linux executables.  Is that what I am missing?
> 
> 2) I don't know if this is symptomatic of not understanding the whole
> "procfs" issue above.
> 
> 3) I don't know if my system even knows that this is a *linux*
> application.. I assume the kernel knows the difference here...  Am I
> supposed to run it through an emulation command first (like wine)?
> 
> 4) Some other factor that I am completely unaware of.
> 
> 
> I am trying here.  I am doing my homework but I am coming up dry.  Can
> someone please help?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Chris
> 

-- 
Bob Beck                                   Computing and Network Services
beck@bofh.ucs.ualberta.ca                           University of Alberta
True Evil hides its real intentions in its street address.

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