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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
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<html> <head>
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<title>StarOffice 3.1</title>
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</head>
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<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>
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"</H4>
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<HR>
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<center><h1>Getting Up and Running on StarOffice 3.1</h1></center>
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<center><H4>by Dwight William Johnson johnson@olympus.net</h4></center>
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<center>Copyright (c) 1996</center><BR>
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<center> <H5>Published in Issue 9 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
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<HR>
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<P>
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Happy as can be, I am composing this in Linux on StarWriter, the extremely
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capable word processor that is part of the StarOffice 3.1 suite of business
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applications. Below I will guide you through the labyrinth of tricks and fixes
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that you will need to get this first beta of StarOffice working on your Linux
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system.
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<p>Star Office 3.1 is a suite of office productivity applications containing
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StarWriter 3.1 (word processor), StarCalc 3.1 (spreadsheet), StarDraw 3.1
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(graphics and presentation package), StarImage 3.1 (image manipulation)
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StarChart 3.1 (bar-, pie- and other charts) and StarMath 3.1 (formula design).
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StarOffice 3.1 makes heavy use of common code in shared libraries, therefore
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using relatively few resources for the level of functionality.
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<p>If you don't have the patience to fix things that aren't right, you should
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wait for the next beta release. But if, like me, you don't mind fixing a few
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things to get the immediate gratification of state-of-the-art business software
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on Linux that you would pay $400 for on Windows 95, read on.
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<p>To save you frustration and disappointment, I must also caution you that you
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will need about 200 megabyes on your hard drive to install StarOffice the way
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I outline below.
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<p>Like many Linux users, I was delighted when the German company StarDivision
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announced it would release an international Linux version of its major office
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suite StarOffice, which competes head to head with Microsoft Office in Europe.
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And still more pleased when I learned that for non-commercial use
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StarOffice would be free.
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<p>I am almost never, however, the first to jump into a new application. Let
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others find the bugs; let me find a productive application is my credo.
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<p>Nevertheless, the prospect of having a high-end WYSIWYG word processor to
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use in Linux was irresistible. When StarDivision was pressured into an early
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release of the first beta of StarOffice 3.1 for Linux on July 31, I rushed up
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to the StarDivision Home Page at <A HREF="http://www.stardivision.de/index.html">
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http://www.stardivision.de/index.html</a> and
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linked to one of a number of possible download sites which in my case was
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.io.org/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/apps/staroffice">
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ftp://ftp.io.org/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/apps/staroffice</a>.
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<p>What I saw stopped me. StarOffice3.1 is a more than a 40Mb download in 53
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files, mostly diskette images. The installed product takes over 120 megabytes.
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<p>I decided to see what the feedback was on StarOffice before investing in that
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kind of bandwidth. I aimed my Netscape newsreader for a place I knew I could
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count on: comp.os.linux.development.apps.
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<p>The news was bad. Many users were having problems installing StarOffice and
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those who could were finding lots of bugs, mostly segmentation faults.
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<p>The worst news of all was being reminded that StarOffice 3.1 requires Motif 2.0.
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Even though StarOffice was free, it did not seem worth the $100-$200 investment
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in Motif 2.0 to bring up an application that might be useless because of
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segmentation and other faults.
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<p>As the days passed, however, the news began to come in that some were getting
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StarOffice installed and were quite thrilled with its look and feel.
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<P>Then on August 18 Peter Klein wrote in the Redhat-List:
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<br>
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"to run and even to install Star Office 3.1. you don't need Motif."
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<br>
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I found his tips and tricks irresistible. I decided to try StarOffice.
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<P>Below is step-by-step how I installed StarOffice 3.1 on my Red Hat 3.0.3
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system with Metro-X server upgraded to the 2.0.10 kernel using Peter Klein's
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recipe garnished with a few additional tricks and fixes which I gleaned
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from the usenet and mailing lists.
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<ol>
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<P><LI>I went to my chosen ftp site,
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.io.org/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/apps/staroffice"</a>
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ftp.io.org/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/apps/staroffice</a>,
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(Alternatively, you can go to any sunsite mirror. Sunsite is at
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<A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/staroffice">
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sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/staroffice</a>.)
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and downloaded the file 'staroffice.README'. Here I learned about the
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StarOffice for Linux license, StarDivision's plans for the product, how
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to connect with the StarOffice technical support and development system
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and valuable installation notes.
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<P><LI>My internet service provider has free hours from midnight to 7:30 A.M.
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So I waited till midnight, fired up xtftp, pointed it to the ftp site,
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created a ~/download/staroffice directory for the download, highlighted
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all 53 files, pressed 'copy' and 'ok' and went to bed.
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<p>(The 'staroffice.README' mentions that you can install only part of
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StarOffice. So my first attempt, not recommended, was to install just
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the common files with StarWriter. Unfortunately, the install program
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comes to an error which has to be stepped past each time it finds a file
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from the complete package that is missing. After clicking 'ignore' with
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my mouse for the first hundred or so times, I abandoned this attempt.)
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<P><LI>If you are fortunate to have Motif 2.0 installed on your system, you
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can skip down to step 6.
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<P><LI>Peter Klein: "You have to install the SO libraries <I>before</I> you can start
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the install program."
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<UL>
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<P><LI>I created the directory ~/so-temp and executed:
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<pre>
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cp ~/download/staroffice/file.01-? ~/so-temp
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cd ~/so-temp
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unzip file.01-1
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unzip file.01-2
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unzip file.01-3
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unzip file.01-4
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unzip file.01-5
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unzip file.01-6
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unzip file.01-7
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</pre>
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In the ~/so-temp file you now have a bunch of subdirectories with the unzipped
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files in them.
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<P><LI>Create a directory to hold the 'so' files. I created mine in /usr/X11R6/lib
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with the command:
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<pre>
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mkdir /usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs.
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</pre>
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<P><LI>Among the subdirectories created in ~/so-temp you will find the
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~/so-temp/lib* directories. I manually went through the
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~/so-temp/lib* directories and copied every file to /usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs.
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I used Midnight Commander, a handy two-panel file manager for the virtual
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console, for this task.
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<P><LI>Next, in the /usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs directory I created the symbolic links:
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<pre>
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cd /usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs
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ln -s libso312.so libMrm.so.2
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ln -s libso312.so libXm.so.2
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</pre>
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<P><LI>I edited the /etc/ld.so.conf file to contain the line:
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<pre>
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/usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs
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</pre>
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<P><LI>I executed ldconfig from root.
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<p>Thank you Peter Klein.
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</UL>
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<P><LI>Not recommended because of the large number of failures reported,
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but still worth checking out for an install approach, is the 'StarInst'
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Perl script by Steffen Winterfeldt which can be downloaded at:<BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.physik.uni-leipzig.de/~wfeldt/starinst/starinst.html">
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http://www.physik.uni-leipzig.de/~wfeldt/starinst/starinst.html</A>.<BR>
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This script is alleged to work with installed versions of Motif 1.2.
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<P><LI>I next ran StarOffice Install which must be executed from root.
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Install is very easy to use. Just make sure you have enough disk space
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(about 125 Mb) and follow the simple prompts that Install presents in its
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dialog boxes. If you have Red Hat and you are executing Install from its
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own directory, you will need to remember to enter './Install'. I installed
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StarOffice into /usr/local/StarOffice3.1.
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<P>At the end of Install, I was given directions for proceeding with the second
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part, the user installation. During the user installation, a user-specified
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directory and configuration files are created for each user. I found it very
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easy to just follow the directions in the dialog boxes. I answered 'yes' to
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the prompt to copy the templates and demo documents to my directory tree
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because I had been informed that if I answered 'no', I would not be able to
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modify these documents, although I could still access them as read-only master
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copies.
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<P><LI>It is now necessary to fix a couple of things that StarDivision didn't
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think of in order to actually use StarOffice. I had to glean these fixes from
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posters to comp.os.linux.development.apps and the Redhat-List after finding
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that my installation of StarOffice didn't work.
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<P>Logged in users must get permission to use StarOffice's fonts and other files.
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Log ('su') into root, and
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<pre>
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chgrp -R users /usr/local/StarOffice3.1/Xp3.
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</pre>
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J. Maynard Gelinas proposed the alternate
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<pre>
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chmod -R a+r /usr/local/StarOffice3.1/Xp3
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</pre>
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for this fix on the Red-Hat List.
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<P><LI>Printing is impossible without this next fix. While logged as root,
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<pre>
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mkdir /tmp/XpSp_
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mkdir /tmp/Xp_
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mkdir /tmp/XpSp_/tmp
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mkdir /tmp/Xp_/tmp
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chgrp -R users /tmp/XpSp_
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chgrp -R users /tmp/Xp_
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</pre>
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<P><LI>To get the on-line help system (unfortunately only in German in this
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release), you will need to start the two daemons, 'svdaemon' and 'svportmap'
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before starting StarOffice. This is how I did it.
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<P>While logged as root, I added the lines:
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<pre>
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/usr/local/StarOffice3.1/linux-x86/bin/svdaemon &
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/usr/local/StarOffice3.1/linux-x86/bin/svportmap &
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</pre>
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to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local.
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<P><LI>Finally, as directed by the StarOffice user installation, I edited my
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~/.bashrc file to contain the line:
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<pre>
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. ~/.sd.sh
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</pre>
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and rebooted my computer.
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</OL>
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<P>And, if you followed along with me -- you are finished! All the download and
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intermediate directories can now be deleted. (Wait a few days, in case you
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find you have to redo something.)
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<P>Log into your user account, 'startx' and open an 'xterm'. The StarOffice
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applications start at the command line with:
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<pre>
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swriter3
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scalc3
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sdraw3
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schart3
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simage3
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smath3
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</pre>
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You will find bugs in this release of StarOffice. But by experimenting, you
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will also find work-arounds.
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<P>For example, I found that exiting the search and replace dialog in StarWriter
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would generate a fatal segmentation fault. But by activating the cursor in
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the search area and pressing <Esc> I can close the dialog box and continue
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working.
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<P>Also, when you use the scroll bar, StarWriter loses its blinking cursor. I
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just go to the menu bar and activate a pull-down menu and then click my mouse
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in the document area. Wherever the mouse touches down places the blinking
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cursor.
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<P>For printing on my Postscript printer I have found that I need to set the
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printer to 'NULL' and the default options to 'lpr'.
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<P>There is a neat little button bar, 'soffice3', that is designed to coordinate
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all these applications. Unfortunately, bugs make it unfunctional. So look,
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but don't touch until the next release.
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<P>Tip of the day for enjoying StarOffice beta one: save your work often.
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<P>StarDivision operates a news server with StarOffice newsgroups at:<br>
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<A HREF="news://starnews.stardivision.com/beta.staroffice.linux">
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news://starnews.stardivision.com/beta.staroffice.linux</a><br>
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where users share their experiences. Be sure to connect during German
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business hours -- no nights or weekends. The same goes for their Web site.
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<p>StarDivision is eager to get your bug reports at:<br>
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<A HREF="mailto:linux-suggest@stardivision.com">
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linux-suggest@stardivision.com</A><BR>
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I am still getting my feet on the ground in StarOffice. But I found
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composing this article in StarWriter quite easy and fun. I used a lot
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of cut and paste between multiple windows, formatting, changing fonts,
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printing, search and replace -- all the basic things you do in word
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processing. But I didn't even scratch the surface of the capabilities
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of just StarWriter. And I haven't even looked at the other applications
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yet. I am looking forward to exploring StarOffice in the coming months.
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<p>I congratulate the vision of StarDivision to recognize that Linux is an
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important platform for major application development.
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<hr>
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