GRS wrote on 2006-07-22:
> On Sat, 2006-07-22 at 13:51 -0700, James E. Lang wrote:
>
> [snipped]
>
> The documentation project has just what you want. A setup guide. When
> I look at http://download.openoffice.org/2.0.3/index.html but do not see
> it mentioned. THat is probably a mistake on the part of the people who
> supposedly look after the web pages. So what you want is
> http://documentation.openoffice.org/setup_guide2/2.x/en/SETUP_GUIDE.pdf
> or its A4 version. The site has much more that may help you as well.
Thank you. It turned out that I had that file but I did not know where to find
it. Anyway, I downloaded it again (over the top of itself) to ensure that I had
the latest and greatest version.
This may be the wrong place for me to be posting this but since I don't know a
better place, here goes.
It is painfully obvious to me that quality control of documentation is lacking.
Those who put together the releases neither test the documentation themselves
nor give it to someone who tests it in minute detail for them assuming
*nothing*. My original post was caused by this shortcoming. Online readme
documents that state that you must have some version of Windows in order to
install and use OOo are but one example of this shortcoming. Of course as
already noted there also was no link to the SETUP_GUIDE. Now that I've
downloaded the missing SETUP_GUIDE I am going to pick a few nits relative to
it. All of these relate to the RPM-based Installation section of that document.
First: The instructions ignore users who are fresh off Windows and not
comfortable with command line operations. Is there no GUI based installation
method? If there is not, then say something like: "There is no GUI based method
to install OpenOffice.org. If you are using a graphic interface you need to
open a terminal window and perform the following command line operations." For
the most part, the commands that are listed in this section of the document
*are* easy to follow.
Second: There is an item number 1 followed *immediately* by item numbers 1
through 5. That makes two items with the number 1 with no intervening verbiage.
Third: Items 3 and 5 both mention installing in "another directory" or having
"relocate" OpenOffice.org but neither gives a concrete example (e.g. installing
in /usr to be "standard" in SuSE) and the syntax of the two is not the same. I
don't know whether the command for a full install into /usr would be
rpm -Uvh --prefix /usr/ *.rpm
or
rpm -Uvh --prefix //usr/ *.rpm
or even maybe
rpm -Uvh --prefix /usr *.rpm
Verbiage such as the following would be a useful addition:
For example, to install in directory /usr try
rpm -Uvh --prefix /usr/ *.rpm
Of course the syntax has to be correct in this example.
In my own case, I hope that I have thoroughly removed all the old stuff and I
am proceeding on to install in /opt by using:
rpm -Uvh *.rpm
Fourth: It says, "Please read the man page for the rpm that comes with your
distribution ..." Since I believe that I have totally removed the conflicting
version of OOo that came with my distribution and was updated from the
prerelease versions by the "automatic" update mechanism, what is there for me
to read? Comment added during editing of this message: Oh! I see now. You mean
"man rpm" but that does not spell out the format of NEWPATH either. Concrete
examples are needed for the newbie.
Separate question: Is there any particular reason why 26 separate rpm files are
needed for OOo? This, of course does not include the "user interface" that, I
guess, has to be separate. I know that when I install rpms for other products I
simply download the rpm file and then I select it and Konqueror gives me the
option to have YaST install it with no hassle. With the vast conglomeration of
rpm files that OOo supplies I might have thought that one of them applied to my
system without any clue as to which one it was and tried to install OOo that
way. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what I tried once upon a time with,
of course, dismal results.
I realize that I'm representing a different point of view but I don't think
that it is that far off base when it comes to folks who may have used OOo on
Windows (as I did) and then migrated to Linux (of whatever flavor). I happen to
have been on Linux now for about two years but I still am feeling my way around
on this process of installing software. I actually built my first software
(proftpd) from source within the past ten days.
I thoroughly enjoy using OOo and only hope that my comments help to lead to an
even better product. Newbies certainly are affected by these problems and don't
necessarily know where to turn for help. In general, the RPM-based Installation
section is quite good. I just want to see the whole installation documentation
to be better yet.
--
Jim
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