Install Libreoffice.org on Ubuntu and Debian based Distros

It is not a "designated replacement" for OpenOffice. It is a fork or OpenOffice. Oracle's response makes clear they will be continuing OOo development and they employ a lot of the OOo developers. As such I really don't have any enthusiasm for the new project. I don't trust Oracle but at this point forking without having the Oracle-based developers doesn't do much for me.

> I don't trust Oracle but at this point forking without having the Oracle-based developers doesn't do much for me.

It's a tough code base. If they can build a team with new developers, that will be worth a lot. The source code won't do anyone any good if only the official development team can work with it.

There is also a lot that could be done to the apps other than the word processor. Calc, for instance, could provide a good interface to R, which would make Calc a high-end number crunching tool, and with a little work, would be able to outdo any graphics in Excel.

Not that these things will happen, but with OOo, it's almost certain that they won't happen.

The bottom line to me is functionality. Whoever makes the most functional suite will win. I don't think dividing the project into three separate camps (Oracle, Novell, Document Foundation) advances the goal of improving functionality and having a top notch alternative to MS Office.

It is not a "designated replacement" for OpenOffice.

Tell that to the major distributors. If four of the top distributors are going to ship L.O., how is it not the replacement for OOo?

For now, major distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and SUSE will ship LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice [ snip ]

http://www.osnews.com/story/23843/OpenOffice_Forked_Into_Lib...

Oracle can keep developing OOo, but Linux wise it looks like they're dead in the water.

I will repeat myself since you seem to have missed the main point: if LibreOffice lacks functionality (i.e.: OOXML support) and therefore lacks document compatibility with MS Office people will not use it. If Linux distros insist on including an office suite which lacks MS Office compatibility that will simply drive people away from those distros or perhaps from Linux entirely. That is NOT a good thing.

I will repeat myself since you seem to have missed the main point: if LibreOffice lacks functionality (i.e.: OOXML support) and therefore lacks document compatibility with MS Office people will not use it.

But that's the point. Many in the community are banking on this new set of developers, or former OpenOffice developers vastly improving the code.

Recently, I received a pptx document from a friend for edit. While I was able to read it in its intended format, the simple changes in graphics I made looked like a bomb went off within it when I returned it to the original author. This is not isolated, this is common with OOXML standards and support. OpenOffice just doesn't seem to be making any real strides to fix the problems. Probably because they can't due to lack of access to the code.

Again, I think many are counting on new, fresh sets of eyes fixing this. Will it happen? shrug...who knows. But hope springs eternal.

h

Why on earth do you people assume that libre office will somehow lack functionality that currently exists in openoffice? Inquiring minds want to know!

[quqote]I don't think dividing the project into three separate camps (Oracle, Novell, Document Foundation) advances the goal of improving functionality[/quote]

Two notes: -Novell is member of the Document foundation, so I only see 'two' separate camps, -Deviding XFree86 in XFree86 and Xorg _did_ greatly advance the goal of improving functionality. I see parallels with the OOo fork: XFree86 was too conservative and hard to contribute to. Xorg was very unstable due to the lots of changes it went through, basically 'postponed XFree86 patches'. This caused lots of headaches for its users. Nonetheless, the more community driven Xorg became the new standard and most people forgot XFree86.

@herzeleid: Some of the statements about the Document Foundation, including the press release, indicate the LibreOffice will be fully free, as in the FSF definition of freedom. That would preclude the OOXML code, I believe, which was developed with Microsoft's cooperation. (That may also explain why it's so darned buggy.)

Darned buggy, to the point of being useless.

Business as usual.

@gus3: No, it's not quite useless. It correctly reads .docx formatted files and, provided they are something relatively simple, it saves them correctly as well. That has value.

@helios:

How complicated was that .pptx?

caitlyn seems to be the only one who sees the real issue here. OO.o may not be perfect at dealing with MS Office documents, but it does a good enough job at the moment that it's a viable alternative to MS Office for a lot of people, and it can be 'sold' as such.

LibreOffice (what a terrible name, makes me think of a sanitary product) may at the moment be basically Go-OO, but already the developers who are going to be developing it are removing functionality, on the grounds that it's tainted, heaven forbid that Microsoft actually helped here. That to me sends a very clear signal that compatibility with MS Office may suffer, and that worries me.

It's perfectly fine that there is a fork of OO.o that is in the hands of the community, but distibutions knee jerk moving to that version seems to me counter productive, and gives me cause to wonder if I will enjoy the same level of compatibility as I currently do.

I use OO as seldom as possible. I try to do everything in Google Docs, or AbiWord and Gnumeric if I need a local client app.

AbiWord in particular has made tremendous strides in the past few releases. I make sure to save in Word97-era .doc or RTF format so just about anybody can read/write it.

Let's not be ridiculous here. It won't take but a trivial program installation to make OOo available, whatever speculation one might make about what LibreOffice will be. Lots of apps are not the default.

AbiWord can deal with (most) Microsoft Word formats.

Gnumeric can deal with (some) Microsoft Excel formats.

Is there a stand-alone that can deal with (some/most) Microsoft PowerPoint formats?

PowerPoint is the big sticking point for me. I've used OO Impress before, but I'd like something more lightweight.

As far as I know OOo had a plugin architerture as well, so maybe in the future OOXML-features may be distributed separately.

If that's not good enough for you, just buy OOO and you receive nice support as well.

Quoting:Tell that to the major distributors. If four of the top distributors are going to ship L.O., how is it not the replacement for OOo?

For now, major distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and SUSE will ship LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice [ snip ]

Actually, that quote is a bit wrong. Debian and Ubuntu are currently not shipping OOo, they are shipping Go-OO. I don't know about Fedora and Suse but I bet that Suse ships with Go-OO as well.

>>>> PowerPoint is the big sticking point for me. I've used OO Impress before, but I'd like something more lightweight

Will this do any good ? http://linuxappfinder.com/package/pptview