LibreOffice

Installing LibreOffice On Slackware 15

Terrell Prude' Jr. — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Slackware has been one of my favorite GNU/Linux distributions for a very long time, especially since Version 8.0 came out, many moons back. The reason is that it embodies the "KISS" method of designing a distribution. "KISS" means, "Keep It Simple, Stupid!", and that's what the Slackware team has done since the distribution's inception. When Slackware 15.0 came out in February 2022, I celebrated like other "Slackers", and I'd been running the beta and release candidates (the then-"Slackware-current") since early 2021.

I've even used Slackware at work in a "Microsoft shop". Yes, it can be done, and it can be done well. To do so, I needed something compatible with Microsoft Office file formats. OpenOffice.org was the ticket back then even in its Beta Build 638c days (yes, I've been using it for a long time!), and the tradition continues today, 21 years later with today's LibreOffice. It is this office productivity suite that really makes using Free Software platforms (e. g. GNU/Linux, the BSD's) on general-purpose business computers possible.

Sadly, Slackware didn't include OpenOffice.org back then, and it doesn't include LibreOffice now. This is speculation on my part, but several years ago, Patrick Volkerding stopped including GNOME because it was too much of a pain to package and distribute for a project that doesn't have the resources of Red Hat, Debian, or Ubuntu. I suspect this may also be true for LibreOffice. Also, the binary packages from LibreOffice come in RPM and DEB format. This choice by the LibreOffice developers is quite understandable, as Red Hat- and Debian-based distros are by far the dominant presence on personal computers. That still leaves us "Slackers" out in the cold, though.

I realize that nowadays there are "Slackbuilds", analogous to BSD's "Packages" collection, and the people who maintain those are definitely to be thanked and appreciated (and I do). The reality is that those aren't always updated to the latest versions of applications, given time constraints. Remember that Slackware is a relatively small all-volunteer project, like OpenBSD. Also, I prefer to stay as up-to-date as possible.

So, what to do?

Fortunately, there is a way to install a fully-functional, latest-greatest, LibreOffice on our Slackware 15.0 computers and use it. The best part is that it's not difficult to do...at least, not now that you have this handy-dandy HOW-TO document to follow.

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Who Contributes the Most to LibreOffice?

Susan Linton — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:00:00 +0000

by Susan Linton

Cedric Bosdonnat has been tracking contributions to LibreOffice since its announced fork from OpenOffice.org. He uses Git Data Miner to gleen results from the main branch of LibreOffice Git repositories. Git Data Miner is more commonly known as the tool used by Jonathan Corbet in his periodic kernel code reports.

Bosdonnat began tracking line contributions in the middle of September 2010 with the original 14 contributions being made by Oracle. Oracle actually contributes code to OpenOffice.org, and then LibreOffice merges those changes, thus resulting in Oracle's contributions to the new fork. These 112 contributions have continued throughout development, but are dwarfed by the contributions of new developers.

New contributors are those that have signed on to help with LibreOffice since the fork, either with code or translations. These contributions make up well over half of the total new changes found in LibreOffice as of mid-February. Weekly contributions in this area have averaged between 20 and 30 with a total number of 517 line contributions.

Those who worked on OpenOffice.org previously and are not employeed by any other major contributor are classified as known contributors. While their number of contributions have been fewer, they averaged approximately five per week since the fork. This totals 90 contributions in the 22 weeks of development.

Novell has been credited with a large portion of the contributions made to LibreOffice. When looking through changelogs the name Novell is seen over and over again. They were significant contributors to OpenOffice.org and many of their patches are used in LibreOffice to this day. Novell developers averaged in the neighborhood of 10 contributions per week for a total of 205 since the fork.

Red Hat, who also contributed to OpenOffice.org, has chipped in as well. With usually two contributions per week, Red Hat developers have provided 39 patches since the fork.

The newest known name to join the contributors list is Canonical. They contributed the Human theme and a later fix, but more Ubuntu integration code is likely. Björn Michaelsen contributed 2 patches in the last few weeks so far.

Bosdonnat says there are 133 new coders and 55 localizers since the fork. There seemed to be a slight dip at the end of last year according the graph and Bosdonnat attributes that to the festivities of the holiday season.

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5 Myths About OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice

Bruce Byfield — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Most free software accumulates myths. Most people only know about it second hand (if at all), but few are slowed by the fact that they don't know what they are talking about.

As a large desktop application that is also cross-platform, OpenOffice.org (or should I say LibreOffice?) seems to have attracted more myths than most. Here are the top five that I have kept stumbling across in eight years of advocacy:

OpenOffice.org Can't Be Any Good Because It's Free

Most free software has faced this myth at one time or other. And, to be honest, sometimes it's true, in that some free software compares unfavorably with its proprietary counterparts.

But in OpenOffice.org's case, the myth is far too sweeping.

In the main office applications, the only place where OpenOffice.org lags behind MSO is in the presentation software; Impress remains less able to handle should than PowerPoint. Other software does not come bundled with OpenOffice.org, but often you can download free software to make up the difference -- for instance, you can use Mozilla Thunderbird rather than Outlook.

Overall, in almost every instance where you would use MSO for professional purposes, you can easily substitute OpenOffice.org. I know, because -- unlike most of OpenOffice.org's detractors -- I've used it professionally, even when I was a lone user interacting with an office full of MSO users. Once I learned the software, I never had any difficulties.

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OpenOffice.org Is Immature Code

"I'd like to use OpenOffice.org," I often hear, "But I need software I can rely on, so I have to stick with with Microsoft Office."

To anyone like me, who can quote chapter and verse about the instability of MSO, or point out what has been broken for over a decade in it, this comment makes me burst out in a fit of giggles. And this reaction isn't anti-Windows or anti-proprietary prejudice; the information is widely known among power users. If I used Windows or proprietary software, I wouldn't be using MSO.

But, my initial reaction aside, this rationale irks me, because the idea that OpenOffice.org code is new simply isn't true. StarDivision, the office suite that is OpenOffice.org's ultimate answer, released its first component -- the word processor -- twenty-five years ago. Within another four years, the word processor had been joined by the rest of the suite.

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