How To Run OpenOffice 3 Fast and How to Easily Upgrade

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playdayz
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How To Run OpenOffice 3 Fast and How to Easily Upgrade

#1 Post by playdayz »

This article mainly discusses two methods of running OpenOffice. At the end it discusses using one of the methods as a way of updating browsers—that method, Program Folders, should also work with other software. Please regard it as experimental and practice safe computing. I've gone to school on the bright and creative people in the forums; the stuff that makes sense is due to them and any of it that doesn't make sense is my contribution. I have done a lot of testing and this works on my computers (Thinkpad T22, 900 MHz PIII Coppermine, 256MB, 4 GB Sandisk Extreme 4 CF to IDE disk formatted ext3 with frugal install--the majority of my test have been done on this thinkpad--my other machine is an Athlon 64 2.0 GHz, 1GB, SATA and IDE hard disks formatted ntfs). There is another article posted in Forums, House Training, Users that discusses the results of timing comparisons in the two methods of running OpenOffice.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29563

Why OpenOffice? In some obvious ways, OpenOffice is the antithesis of Puppy; OOo is big and slow, for instance. But for some users, Puppy needs OpenOffice because many if not most business and education users, for instance, need a full-featured office suite. They may admire and respect AbiWord and Gnumeric (which may be just the thing for most other users), but Goffice is not sufficiently full-featured for their needs. They need, for one thing, a presentation graphics program as powerful as Powerpoint. So Puppy needs OpenOffice and I think it is a wonderful symmetry that OpenOffice needs Puppy! In my experience OpenOffice has always been too slow to use, which left Linux without a full-featured office suite, but the first time I ran it under Puppy I was blown away—it was fast enough to use! Puppy is the best foundation I have seen for running OpenOffice, which I regard as yet another good reason for running Puppy Linux.

There are two ways to run OpenOffice under Puppy. One is the well-known and well-documented SFS file. Given a specific configuration (pfix=noram) this method can provide close to optimal performance. However I favor another method, which I have not seen discussed, which provides optimal performance under all configurations. I call that method “program folders
Last edited by playdayz on Mon 26 May 2008, 03:10, edited 4 times in total.

disciple
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#2 Post by disciple »

One thing to remember is that your "Program folders" method is not suitable for use on Windows partitions.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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raffy
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rox

#3 Post by raffy »

A little more tweaking and this will be the appdir feature of Rox - thanks a lot for this.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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playdayz
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Windows Partitions and Program Folders

#4 Post by playdayz »

@disciple

Could you explain please or direct me to a link that explains why the "program folders" are not suitable for use on a windows partition--and is that a fat32 partition or ntfs or both? I won't be a bit surprised that there is a problem but I haven't found it yet and have been doing this on an ntfs partition for a couple of weeks. I made a Puppy400 folder that contains the pup_sav.2fs and the program folders. My other computer, the laptop, has the sandisk cf to ide drive formatted in linux ext3. thanks.

raffy
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why

#5 Post by raffy »

One reason i know is that Windows parttions do not support symlinks.

If you work in pup_save.2fs, then fine as that is still a Linux partition. Placing programs in /usr/local will still be using pup_save.2fs.

You will be using Windows partition when you mount one (FAT, NTFS) and place folder/s in there (usually in /mnt/partitionname).

Note: partitionname can be "hda1" or "sda1", or "home" if it is where your pup_save.2fs is located.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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playdayz
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More Timings

#6 Post by playdayz »

I did some more timings which might be interesting. I put them in the companion thread to this one. I don't know why I split them like this--it seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess I thought one was the performance question and one was the other considerations.

Companion thread --> http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29563

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Béèm
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#7 Post by Béèm »

Hello playdayz,

I wanted to try the program folders approach, but the link http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/OOo3beta.tar.gz isn't valid any more.

I tried then the versions from the OOo download site, but allI find are rpm and deb files and I don't see how these can be installed in a program folder as you advertise.

How do I get the 3.2 in a program folder then?
Time savers:
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Dingo
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#8 Post by Dingo »

try this script

for x in `ls ./*rpm`; do rpm2cpio $x | cpio -ivd; done

to extract all rpms content in une folder
replace .co.cc with .info to get access to stuff I posted in forum
dropbox 2GB free
OpenOffice for Puppy Linux

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Béèm
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#9 Post by Béèm »

Dank u Dingo.
Worked very nicely.
Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
[url=http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage]Consult Wikka[/url]
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DaveS
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#10 Post by DaveS »

Bookmark
Spup Frugal HD and USB
Root forever!

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Béèm
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#11 Post by Béèm »

Just bear in mind that the opt directory generated from the rpm's is 337MB.
As there are symlinks in the structure, it can't be installed on a vfat partition.
Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
[url=http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage]Consult Wikka[/url]
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