Installing LibreOffice on Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Remix

As many are aware, Oracle have bought over Sun, along with it assuming some controlling influence over several open source projects, such as OpenOffice.org, Netbeans, MySQL, and many Java projects. As a result of the buy over, there have been a few community branching out from the original projects, such as LibreOffice from OpenOffice.org, and MariaDB from MySQL.

I have been a long time user of OpenOffice.org, starting with it's predecessor StarOffice 5.1. I have three main reasons for using OpenOffice.org:

1. I could not afford to buy Microsoft Office (currently RM475 for Microsoft Office Home and Business, or RM960 for Microsoft Office Professional);
2. I needed a consistent and stable file format especially when doing data cleansing and migration; and
3. OpenOffice software and updates were freely downloadable from the internet, so I could share them at work, at home, with my family, with my colleagues, and with my customers.

So while lazing about in the library at the community centre in Precint 16, Putrajaya, I decided to give LibreOffice [1] a try. Part of the reason was Oracle's announcement for paid versions of Oracle Open Office [2]. I was already using GoOffice on my Microsoft Windows machines, so I was already happy to try out free alternative branches of OpenOffice.org.

The OpenOffice.org 3.2 version is included as part of the Ubuntu 10.04 distribution, while the current version are OpenOffice.org 3.3 and LibreOffice 3.3. The current version includes minor enhancements such as working with newer Microsoft Office docx files, as well as templates and add-ons.

Very important note: Installing LibreOffice on Ubuntu, will automatically OpenOffice.org. Make sure that you have saved and completed any work that you are doing on OpenOffice.org

There is a short guide for LibreOffice installation on Ubuntu [3], however on my Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Remix, there were some differences. So, if you had followed the guides but there were errors, no need to worry, as the messages would have given you a clue to what work around need to be done. The following are the steps I took for installing LibreOffice on Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Remix (with the work arounds highlighted in orange):

1. Open a terminal from the Netbook panels : Accessories > Terminal
2. Add the LibreOffice repository in its' Personal Package Archive (PPA)
   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
3. Update your computer's software packages list
   sudo apt-get update
4. Install the LibreOffice common files
   sudo apt-get install libreoffice-common
5. Install the whole LibreOffice core files
   sudo apt-get install libreoffice
6. Install the LibreOffice Gnome desktop integration
   sudo apt-get install libreoffice-gnome
7. I also added the following additional options
   sudo apt-get install libreoffice-pdfimport mozilla-libreoffice

The whole process on a public wifi at the library took me about 30 minutes. I can now access LibreOffice at the Ubuntu Netbook panel : Office > LibreOffice

References:

1. http://www.libreoffice.org/
2. http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/open-office/index.html
3. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LibreOffice