Novell OPENOFFICE 2.X, Setup Manual, Page: 21 / 53

Gentoo installation
Gentoo installation
OpenOffice.org 2.x is available in the Portage tree used to install applications under Gentoo
Linux.
Before starting it is a good idea to update the Portage tree if you have not done so recently:
emerge –-sync
Next, check to see which packages are currently available for your architecture:
emerge –-search openoffice
At the time of this writing there were two OpenOffice.org 2.x packages available for x86-
based systems: app-office/openoffice, a source-based package for compilation on your system;
and app-office/openoffice-bin, a pre-compiled binary package. Both packages were based on
version 2.0.0. By the time you read this these packages will probably be updated.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these options. Emerging app-
office/openoffice will compile OpenOffice.org directly on your computer, with all of the
optimizations you have designed into your system. You will also have the most control over
how OpenOffice.org 2.x is installed on your system. For example, by specifying a Java USE
flag Portage will insure that all Java packages needed by OpenOffice.org for full functionality
will be installed.
The disadvantage is that OpenOffice 2.x is a very large package, and installation will take
hours. Since the installation is automated by Portage you may choose to install this package
and walk away until the installation is complete.
The app-office/openoffice-bin package, if available for your architecture, is already compiled
into binaries. The compilation is based on a “generic” architecture and typically includes
everything OpenOffice.org offers. The advantage to using this package is that, once
downloaded, installation only takes a few minutes.
Note: Portage does not permit the installation of -bin and compile-locally packages of the same application on the
same system, even with different versions. If you wish to switch from a locally compiled version to a pre-compiled
binary, or vice versa, you must first remove the existing version of the application. See the removal instructions
below.
Once you have decided which package you want to install you can test the installation using
the “pretend” option:
emerge –-pretend openoffice
or:
emerge –-pretend openoffice-bin
You will be presented with a list of all of the packages needed to successfully install
OpenOffice.org 2.x on your system. If you want to force installation of any Java packages that
OpenOffice.org 2.x can use you can specify a USE flag on the command line:
USE=”java” emerge –-pretend openoffice
or:
USE=”java” emerge –-pretend openoffice-bin
OpenOffice.org 2.0 Setup Guide 13