On June 30, 2018 10:48 AM, Slávek Banko slavek.banko@axis.cz wrote:

Libreoffice-trinity is available only for Debian 7.x (Wheezy), 8.0

(Jessie) and Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty). For other versions of distributions

you have to use LibreOffice without TDE integration.

alas. oh, well.

staying on topic, i have a couple of other relatively minor configuration issues which might be bugs or might be me -- my money is on the latter -- having to do with kmenu's icon and its font size. i've made kicker good and big -- 96 pixels -- and am using big icons, which show up except for kmenu. i have set it (Configure Panel > Menus > Change menu icon) to use the 64x64 kmenu icon from the kdeclassic collection, but it won't take and sticks with the 48. likewise, while i can change the font sizes in other TDE elements, i can't in kmenu, either through the control panel or through the control in Configure Panel > Menus > Font. How am I erring?

dep

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re. openoffice --

many thanks. i might take you up on it, though i remember a very unhappy experience with an ibm compile of openoffice a couple of years ago.

at the moment i am on a photo assignment and i can say with unbounded delight that though tiny the GPD is an excellent portable picture editor when combined with the GIMP and gThumb (thugh the latter suffers from GTK tiny font disease under TDE. (oh, for that 200 percent button in the GTK-handling configuration tab in kcontrol!)

in a couple of hours i'll be seeing if it's useful for writing a 1100-word story on deadline in, i guess, kword (or else a logout and login to gnome to use abiword).

​dep

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William Morder wrote:

I don't use LibreOffice myself, and prefer the OpenOffice version that has been kept alive by Apache.

+1 here

I have been using KDE since 2003 and without any issue since 2005. Probably I got smart enough between 2003 and 2005. I use OpenOffice since 2007 - now hosted by Apache foundation. I usually download the deb files and install them via dpkg -i

I never had issue except few bugs I reported. When someone complains I think might be the approach is wrong, the setup or the way the system is beeing setup or handled.

I look forward when dep will get mature and stop bother us with issues and problems :)

regards

I have made this into a separate thread, since my response is rather long, and I don't want to hijack it and steal somebody else's fire.

On Saturday 30 June 2018 14:17:39 dep wrote:

On June 30, 2018 4:33 PM, deloptes deloptes@gmail.com wrote:

...

I have been using KDE since 2003 and without any issue since 2005. Probably

I got smart enough between 2003 and 2005.

. . .

...

I look forward when dep will get mature and stop bother us with issues and

problems :)

I lack your vast experience, having used KDE only since a few weeks before the release of KDE-1.0 and having even once written a little something about it:

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/560/

And in those days and many since, I have endeavored to assist people, as do many here, but there also comes a time when one asks questions, occasionally seeking to push TDE into areas of computing that show promise -- such as high-pixel-density devices. But I would never criticize those who came relatively late to the game.<g>

dep

Experience is relative; hard to measure, unless we have been in the same circumstances, with the same resources, etc.; so I will try to cut everybody slack, if they please remember to do the same for me.

As a hedge against human and/or inhuman error, I use both methods. Yes, I do use the Open Office repository, so that I can upgrade when newer packages become available. However, even though I have a very fast Internet connection, the power here often goes out several times in a single day; once, about one-third of the city had the grid knocked out (which managed to destroy my old desktop). And even though the nearest wireless access point is right outside my door, and I have a good wifi antenna pointed directly at it, maybe fifteen feet away, I rarely get above 50% reading on wicd for that point - yet it is the strongest and nearest connection.

So ... yes, I also keep all the deb packages that I have downloaded, and once I figured out the steps for purging all LibreOffice packages and dependencies that conflict with OpenOffice, using this command: sudo apt-get purge libreoffice libreoffice-* Then I generally use the command sudo dpkg -i -E -G /media/~/openoffice/*.deb to install it, then just run sudo apt-get -f install to correct anything. (Assuming here that /media/~/openoffice points to your backup folder on another hard drive or flash drive, or wherever ... whatever you name it.)

If you do install from the repositories, then you may run into a problem with language packs, etc., and find everything in Brazilian Portuguese, and end up having to reinstall. This is why what deloptes says is right: once you have things set up as you want them, better to install with dpkg, and reduce the possibilities that can mess you up. If you want to upgrade your packages, save the new packages in a backup file; e.g., sudo mv -v -f /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb -t /media/~/openoffice/

My use of commands, by the way, is "obscure" only until you get used to them; and I don't actually bother to type them out most of the time, but rather keep a list of oft-used commands, then just copy and paste from my list. You should repeat the mantra, "Command-line is my friend!" until you learn this deep and wonderful truth of Linux. What I am saying is, I generally look up the commands for what I need, online or in manpages* (which live in your shell), then I adjust them to do what I want, and copy them to my list of commands. I use the commands, then I learn why they work later; I only try to avoid those commands that get serious warnings.

[*If you don't know how to find your manpages, you just need to run, e.g., man apt or man kpdf Also, apt --help kpdf --help will give a short list of common commands for most of your apps. Practically everything in your system can be controlled, adjusted or hacked from the command-line, and the manpages give the most complete list of commands.]

There are a couple of dependencies that look almost identical in both LibreOffice and OpenOffice, and if you aren't careful, it will re-install LibreOffice, but without getting rid of OpenOffice; or you may find that you have installed OpenOffice without getting rid of everything in LibreOffice. And therein is the problem.

The same with whenever you run sudo apt-get dist-upgrade If you do this before you have purged LibreOffice, added OpenOffice repositories, and installed OpenOffice (whether using apt, aptitude, synaptic, gdebi, or dpkg, or whatever trips your trigger), then when you upgrade you may find that Debian or Devuan reinstalls LibreOffice; sometimes it will uninstall OpenOffice, sometimes not. I believe that the 'Buntus tend to behave the same.

What I am saying, then, is make sure that you purge everything LibreOffice, then add OpenOffice repositories and install OO. After that, I generally have no problems. In any case, once you get the steps in the right order, you should be okay.

If this will be of some help to anybody out there, I will give a short list of my steps, to purge LibreOffice and install OpenOffice, using both apt and dpkg, in the hopes that this will somehow lead to WORLD PEACE.

Bill

On Saturday 30 June 2018 17:40:29 Mike Bird wrote:

As other people may read this thread I think it is important to add an opposing viewpoint.

Unless you are willing to do what Tim and friends did for KDE by taking on and actively maintaining the project, I cannot recommend OpenOffice to anyone. Even OpenOffice's own few remaining developers have at times recommended against using it. Those who do use it are recommended to install workarounds themselves as OpenOffice does not have the resources to produce fixes for known security problems until many months after they are reported. For example, 4.1.3 had a known security problem for ten months but did not have the resources to get a fix out.

If you must use OpenOffice do not download from third party sites as there are lots of infected OpenOffice downloads out there. But even after downloading OpenOffice from the master site your work is not done. You have to follow the project and install workarounds yourself for security holes that OpenOffice knows about when they can't get the releases out to fix them.

Unlike KDE 4 versus KDE 3 (or systemd versus sysvinit) LibreOffice is a good and compatible replacement for OpenOffice. Indeed, none of our users reported any problems or complaints when we switched from OpenOffice to LibreOffice. Thus there is little reason to maintain OpenOffice and I do not foresee a long future for it.

I also recommend installing LibreOffice from your distro rather than from LibreOffice upstream unless you need bleeding edge functionality.

--Mike

As you say, it is good to have other viewpoints, and I certainly don't recommend downloading from third-party sites, etc. I am also aware that there aren't many people maintaining OpenOffice, and all that other stuff.

However, you missed what are, for me, the most important points: 1. LibreOffice messes up my documents, so that I would have to redo thousands of pages of layout. Usually the pages are only off by a couple lines between my OpenOffice version and the LibreOffice, but over the the length of an entire document, everything gets screwed-up, and I would be forced to begin all over again, almost from scratch.

2. LibreOffice often refuses to open my own documents; even after I change permissions, remove lock files, etc.

3. When I did complain about my problems with LibreOffice, I was basically told just to "get over it"; sort of like when KDE3 died. When people started mentioning the possibility of reviving the old KDE3 as TDE, we were told that it wouldn't work, that it couldn't work, that there were problems with Qt3, Qt4, etc. And anyway, anybody who didn't just give up and "get with it" and stop complaining and just use KDE4 Plasma must be old fogies, and nobody cares about them anyway.

4. I don't like LibreOffice. I do like OpenOffice. (See #8 below.)

5. I didn't recommend "OpenOffice for Everybody!"; I only said that some few might prefer it (for example, myself and deloptes, to start); and others might find that it suits their needs. I don't feel that I must take on the responsibility of maintaining OpenOffice merely because I have made a qualified and limited recommendation.

6. I do not doubt that OpenOffice has some security holes; most stuff out there as some problems, and some have more than others. Please direct me towards some software that has absolutely no security holes, as I've never encountered a virgin in the real world.

7. LibreOffice tends to do a lot of stuff that takes control out of my own hands. (I haven't used it for a while, so no, I don't have a list handy, but perhaps others can help there.)

8. I do like OpenOffice. I don't like LibreOffice. (See #4 above.)

As I said, it might not be for everybody, but maybe for a few people it is still useful. You seem to be saying that nobody ought to use it, and that I am wrong even to bring it up. So much for WORLD PEACE.

Bill

On Saturday 30 June 2018 20:17:07 Felmon Davis wrote:

On Sat, 30 Jun 2018, William Morder wrote:

...

However, you missed what are, for me, the most important points:

1. LibreOffice messes up my documents, so that I would have to redo

thousands of pages of layout. Usually the pages are only off by a couple lines between my OpenOffice version and the LibreOffice, but over the the length of an entire document, everything gets screwed-up, and I would be forced to begin all over again, almost from scratch.

2. LibreOffice often refuses to open my own documents; even after I

change permissions, remove lock files, etc.

3. When I did complain about my problems with LibreOffice, I was

basically told just to "get over it"; sort of like when KDE3 died. When people started mentioning the possibility of reviving the old KDE3 as TDE, we were told that it wouldn't work, that it couldn't work, that there were problems with Qt3, Qt4, etc. And anyway, anybody who didn't just give up and "get with it" and stop complaining and just use KDE4 Plasma must be old fogies, and nobody cares about them anyway.

in case people don't know, there is also a libreoffice mailing list for users, which is quite active. and I get the impression reading it that it is very helpful.

...

4. I don't like LibreOffice. I do like OpenOffice. (See #8 below.)

I have limited experience with Libreoffice but I do much prefer OpenOffice.

with OO on a yearly basis I have put together 60-page volumes with footnotes (numbering beginning at each 'chapter'), table of contents and modest use of paragraph styling (chapter headers, footnotes, indented paragraphs for extended quotes, bibliography). so, for me, it works.

...

5. I didn't recommend "OpenOffice for Everybody!"; I only said that some

few might prefer it (for example, myself and deloptes, to start); and others might find that it suits their needs. I don't feel that I must take on the responsibility of maintaining OpenOffice merely because I have made a qualified and limited recommendation.

6. I do not doubt that OpenOffice has some security holes; most stuff out

there as some problems, and some have more than others. Please direct me towards some software that has absolutely no security holes, as I've never encountered a virgin in the real world.

"virgin" is not the same as bug-free (in this context).

There is a pun involved, about twice-removed. Anybody whose mind works in the same way as mine might have got it already, so I won't spell it out.

In any case, I don't use macros, don't load external references like active hyperlinks, and don't use my Office programs for anything online.

I can't judge the security issues. documents I send or receive are .doc, .docx or .pdf since most people I correspond with use Word. but looking at the CVE site, I haven't figured out an effective way to compare vulnerabilities https://www.cvedetails.com/. the few I've read there would likely not affect me.

...

7. LibreOffice tends to do a lot of stuff that takes control out of my

own hands. (I haven't used it for a while, so no, I don't have a list handy, but perhaps others can help there.)

LO is too 'busy', I find the interface distracting and need to master the very fluid update system: "fresh", "still" and so on. but like with almost anything on a computer, I'd get used to it if I had to.

...

8. I do like OpenOffice. I don't like LibreOffice. (See #4 above.)

As I said, it might not be for everybody, but maybe for a few people it is still useful. You seem to be saying that nobody ought to use it, and that I am wrong even to bring it up. So much for WORLD PEACE.

the objections seemed appropriate and fair warning but I find them hard to assess. in any case, I hope world peace does not require agreement.

I would never have brought up OpenOffice at all, except for a remark, now lost in an earlier thread, about how LibreOffice didn't work in dep's situation.

World Peace (or Word Peace) requires only that we can get along. I made an offer to try to help somebody else, and was told that it was irresponsible of me to recommend a program, the security of which is perhaps dubious, when I did not take on the work of maintaining the repository and bug fixes myself. To me that sounds absurd; all we need is a warning to use at our own risk.

f.

Thanks for your voice. It is good to know that there are others who still prefer OpenOffice to LibreOffice. My own hope is that either OO or LO, or both, will get it together, and then maybe in another 20 years, we will have Office software that actually works for writers who create very long documents. If one writes only short pieces for newspapers or blogs, then I am sure that LibreOffice works okay.

I am playing end-game here. I don't have time to wait until something comes out that will satisfy everybody everywhere. I only need something that is "good enough" for here and now, that will allow me to finish a long project while I am still alive to see it in print.

Bill

On Saturday 30 June 2018 18:34:25 dep wrote:

On June 30, 2018 8:40 PM, Mike Bird mgb-trinity@yosemite.net wrote:

...

As other people may read this thread I think it is important to add an

opposing viewpoint.

Unless you are willing to do what Tim and friends did for KDE by taking

on and actively maintaining the project, I cannot recommend OpenOffice

to anyone.

I have to confess that I pretty much agree. Also, the only issues I have ever had with LibreOffice are the hellishly difficult, multi-location, not-well-documented ways of creating defaults in it -- and that's just the word processor -- and, now, my inability to make the menus and such be the size that I would like under TDE on the little computer, which I used successfully all day in the field today for photo and story processing. When scaling comes to pass, it will be pefect with TDE (and I have no desire, none at all, to learn a different desktop).

It's funny -- my first encounter with Open/LibreOffice was when it was StarOffice and was one of the few complicated programs for the OS/2 WorkPlace Shell. It was really weird but I liked it. And it was not just an office suite but an internet suite, with browser, email, the works. I think it even handled newsgroups. They put out a full-featured demo that worked for, I think, a month. Then you had to pay, and it wasn't cheap.

Then Star Division got bought by Sun, which put out a version or two for I think Windows, then Sun got bought by Oracle. Apache was in there someplace, if memory serves. OpenOffice.org was the official name of the free version for some time. Then the LibreOffice fork got going -- wasn't it because of its friendlier license? -- and pretty soon everything was LibreOffice. And as I said, my only recent experience with OpenOffice was first, "Symphony," which was IBM's recycled-from-Lotus fork of OpenOffice, followed by IBM's own fork of OpenOffice under the OpenOffice.org name, both of which broke everything they touched.

Which does seem like a long way around to get the menu fonts I want.

​dep

To each his/her own.

Bill

On Sun, 1 Jul 2018, deloptes wrote:

[...]

The main reason to try LibreOffice was that it would promise to be able to edit MS word documents - well not really.

So since I prefer stability over functionality, I switched over to OpenOffice and never had an issue with it. It might be that I try LibreOffice once again though, but I have limited time and I found out that you can't really work on MS document with those open source tools, so the companies I work for offer office365 where the stupid thing is integrated or provide a computer or virtual machine where I can work if needed.

I'll only say I have had very few problems with MS documents but a couple are show-stoppers. the main one I can recall is handling of tables but there were a few others.

and I too prefer stability over functionality, assuming sufficient degrees of the latter.

f.