Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 1: Installing StarOffice

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Hour 1
Installing StarOffice

This hour guides you through the process of installing StarOffice on your Linux system. Although installing StarOffice is quite simple, review the information presented here to ensure a smooth installation. The key to a smooth installation, no matter which Linux system you're running, is to be certain that the correct system libraries are installed and available to StarOffice.

Reviewing Linux System Requirements

If you follow the information in this section, you can get StarOffice running on basically any Linux system that meets the listed requirements. The system requirements for installing StarOffice 5 are listed in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1  System Requirements to Install StarOffice 5 for Linux

Description

Requirement

Linux kernel version

2.0.x (or later stable version)

Linux library version

libc6, also called glibc2, version 2.0.7 (other library versions can be installed on your Linux system, but the correct version must be available to StarOffice, as described in the sections that follow)

System Memory

32MB RAM

Hard Disk Space

11-140MB, depending on installation type

X Window System graphics

256 or more colors or grayscales


Although these requirements are straightforward, note that compared to many Linux programs, StarOffice requires a fair amount of memory and hard disk space. The more you have, the more smoothly StarOffice runs.

Checking Your Environment Variables

StarOffice uses the LANG environment variable to determine which international number, currency, and dictionary settings to use. The default setting is en_US for U.S. English. If you need to change to British English, use the following command from any command line before running StarOffice:


export LANG=en_GB

Note - Because the default language for StarOffice is U.S. English, you don't have to worry about setting the LANG variable unless you want to try other languages.

Single-User and Network (Multiuser) Installations

One of the benefits of using Linux is the true multiuser capability of the operating system. Several people can be logged in across a network and use the files and services from a single Linux system.

StarOffice allows a network installation, which enables you to install StarOffice from a main location (such as /opt or /usr/local) and then install a relatively small (2-9 MB) client portion that enables a user to have access to the StarOffice installation without installing the entire (huge) product in every home directory.

Tip - Even if you're using Linux just as your desktop, using a network installation is an easy way to allow multiple user accounts to access StarOffice without using 140MB for each user's copy.

Checking File Permissions and Library Versions

Most problems with StarOffice installation occur for one of the following reasons:

If you use a single-user installation, you'll be installing StarOffice in your home directory, so permission to create files is no problem.

If you intend to use a network installation, you probably want to be logged in as root (or as a user with some system administration rights) to create the StarOffice installation and install the new system libraries if necessary. The directory in which you install StarOffice must be accessible for read access by all the users who will be running StarOffice from that location. The commands to set the permissions for the StarOffice directory are provided later in this hour as the setup procedure is described.

StarOffice 5 requires that you have the following two items installed on your system:

The installation procedure described in this hour includes installation of the glibc libraries that are included with the StarOffice 5 product because many Linux systems don't include these libraries.

Red Hat Linux 5 or later and Debian 2 or later both use the new glibc libraries required by StarOffice. Caldera's OpenLinux 1.3 and Slackware 3.6, however, are still based on the older libc5 libraries. If you have trouble getting StarOffice to run, follow the complete installation procedure outlined in this hour----it installs the necessary libraries on systems that don't already have them.

The libraries that are installed take up a few extra megabytes on your system, but are used only by StarOffice and don't interfere with anything else you're doing on your Linux system.

Using Different Linux Systems

StarOffice for Linux was originally "sponsored" by Caldera, Inc., a leading Linux vendor. Caldera worked with Star Division to have the StarOffice suite ported to Linux. As the popularity of Linux and StarOffice for Linux have grown, StarDivision has ensured that StarOffice works with all Linux systems that meet the requirements described previously. The README files included with the StarOffice program describe some hints for working with StarOffice on specific Linux distributions, including OpenLinux, Red Hat, Suse, Slackware and Debian.

Although many Linux programs are stored and distributed as RPM-formatted files, StarOffice for Linux uses a separate installation program described later in this hour. You don't need to have the rpm tool installed on your Linux system to install StarOffice.

Caution - Replacing libraries on a stable Linux system is not a good idea. Instead, follow the installation procedure in this hour to make the needed library version available only to StarOffice.


Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

ContentsIndex

Hour 1: Installing StarOffice

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