Installing the latest OpenOffice.org in Mandriva

OOo 2.0 isn't included in Mandriva 2005LE or 2006, as they both standardized on earlier releases. As a result they will continue to patch the older versions on those distros until the support cycle runs out down the road. Of course, a Mandriva-packaged release of OOo 2.0 has hit Mandriva's club mirrors, but that doesn't help those of us who are not paying club members. If you aren't in Mandriva Club and you want OOo 2.0, you'll have to follow these directions from openoffice.org:
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Linux RPM-based Installation

Prerequisites

If you want Java integration, you want to make sure you have the latest JRE installed. It should be at least JRE 1.4. You can find the JRE for Linux at the Java JRE for Linux download site. Alternatively, it might be included on the installation media of your distro as part of a complete Java development environment.

Installation Steps

Unpack the downloaded image into a directory. For example, currently, the following command would unpack into the current directory:

Code:

tar xvzf OOo_2.0.0_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz

Su to root, if necessary.
cd into the directory with the unpacked image. This could be RPMS.
Delete any rpm files that do not apply to your system. For example, on a Fedora Core 3 system, delete any rpms specific to another distribution such as openofficeorg-suse-menus-1.9.79-1.noarch.rpm.
Then execute:

Code:

rpm -Uvih *rpm

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My Digested Walkthrough

Though their walkthrough doesn't mention it, it's a good idea to dump all of the RPMs in one directory before you do what they suggest. So my digested version of their walkthrough:

1. download & install Java for Linux
2. download OpenOffice.org 2.0
3. untar the contents of the OpenOffice installer into a temp directory
4. move all of the RPM files into a central locale
5. delete any RPMs that mention a distro other than the one you're running
6. open a shell as root, and browse to the folder containing your OOo RPMs
7. run the following command: rpm -Uvih *rpm
8. Clean up your installation mess by deleting all of the temporary files and RPMs created during the installation

Associating Documents with OOo 2.0

You'll probably also want to change your file associations to open your documents in OpenOffice 2.0 instead of 1.1.5. In KDE, this can be accomplished with the file associations tool. You can run the tool with the following command: ...or by Browsing through Kmenu -> System -> Configuration -> KDE -> Components -> File Associations. On any applicable filetypes (.doc, .sxw, etc), simply move OpenOffice.org 2.0 to the top of the "Application Preference Order" list.



Note:

If you've installed the SeerOfSouls repository, you can install OOo for Mandriva through your package manager rather than going through all the steps above. Plus, the end results are better, since the SoS version of OOo is built specifically for Mandriva!