Issue 121481

Summary:	openoffice installs its own /usr/bin/soffice instead of using debian alternatives system
Product:	Installation	Reporter:	luc
Component:	ui	Assignee:	AOO issues mailing list <issues>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P3	CC:	arielch, binbjguo, issues, jlindsay, mseidel, pescetti, thumperward
Version:	3.4.1
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux, all
Issue Type:	DEFECT	Latest Confirmation in:	---
Developer Difficulty:	---
Issue Depends on:
Issue Blocks:	121500

Description luc 2012-12-14 10:29:20 UTC

Since the fork between LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org (now Apache OpenOffice), both suites install an /usr/bin/soffice link directly on Debian systems.
This completely prevents users to install both on the same computer, despite
Debian does provide a fully mature way to support that: the alternatives.

This is particularly annnoying since /usr/bin/soffice is already a link, so
technically there is no point in forcing its destination at installation.

With the current setting, attempting to install the suite A when suite B has
been installed beforehand fails (whatever are A and B, the problem is the same in both installation orders). The failure is that dpkg refuses to overwrite /usr/bin/soffice since it is owned by the first package installed. Installation can be force using dpkg only using the --force-overwrite flag. This is really inconvenient and seems to contradict Debian installation rules. Even if people manage to install both packages using dpkg and --force-overwrite, upgrading also don't work and the same trick has to be reused to overwrite the link.

Apache OpenOffice (and LibreOffice too) should use the alternatives mechanism to
set up the /usr/bin/soffice link on the Debian packaging system. Note that the same bug report has already been filed on the Debian bug tracker for LibreOffice (see http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=695916).

Comment 1 binguo 2012-12-21 10:43:50 UTC

confirm it.

Comment 2 John H. Lindsay 2015-04-21 15:50:19 UTC

My miseration is about the .wpi installer for Apache Open 
Office 4.1.1.1 .  There are 3 bugs, related in that they 
all pertain to installing  AOO v. 4.1.1.1 for OS/2 and eCS 
using the .wpi on my OS/2 (eCS v. 2.2 B2) system, with the 
first quite like issue 121481 for Linux.  

While I understand that AOO is supposed to be installable 
in any directory in one's system (at least in any drive in 
one's system) I find that the .wpi display for the 
selection of the drive is greyed out and fixed at 
<boot drive>:PROGRAMS.  In my case, I have 3 drives on one 
disk, K:, L:, and M: for the OS/2 / eCS operating system 
(previous version as backup, current version -- in use, and 
next version while I am building it) that I reuse cyclicly, 
and I try to put all the 'system utilities' and really 
necessary stuff like OpenOffice on N: on the same disk for 
use in any of the operating systems.  This restriction 
makes it necessary to have installed at least 2 copies of 
AOO, instead of the just 1 that I would prefer.

The installation completes with a success message and no 
warning, information or error messages, but (a) the files 
are stored in a subfolder of M:PROGRAMS called simply 
Folder , just as in the case of any newly created folder.  
No message indicates this.  And (b), no desktop icon is 
created as is chosen.  I have checked the requirements for 
installation.

Starting the quickstart program fails at once with a small 
grey error message window with the heading 'Unable to start 
Apache OpenOffice!' and the body: 'Execution failed! 
Contact technical support.  Return code: 2  Failing module: 
ICUUC42' and an 'OK' button which, when pressed, only 
causes the little error message window to close.  

Any clues what all is up ?  

John.

Comment 3 Matthias Seidel 2016-10-02 10:28:09 UTC

(In reply to John H. Lindsay from comment #2)
> My miseration is about the .wpi installer for Apache Open 
> Office 4.1.1.1 .  There are 3 bugs, related in that they 
> all pertain to installing  AOO v. 4.1.1.1 for OS/2 and eCS 
> using the .wpi on my OS/2 (eCS v. 2.2 B2) system, with the 
> first quite like issue 121481 for Linux.  

Hello John,

AOO for OS/2 and eCS is maintained by "bww bitwise works"
The current version is 4.12, so the problem may be addressed already.

Otherwise you should contact them for support:

http://www.bitwiseworks.com/support.php

regards

Matthias