Documentation/FAQ/Installation/How do I install Apache OpenOffice on Gentoo
Installation
OpenOffice.org 3 is available in the Portage tree used to install applications under Gentoo Linux.
1.Update the Portage tree if you have not done so recently:
emerge –-sync
2.Check which packages are currently available for your architecture:
emerge –-search openoffice
3.There are two OpenOffice.org packages available for x86 systems:
app-office/openoffice
a source-based package for compilation on your system
app-office/openoffice-bin
a pre-compiled binary package.
Both packages are based on version 3.
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.org 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 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 on your system. If you want to force installation of any Java packages that OpenOffice.org can use you can specify a USE flag on the command line:
USE=”java” emerge –-pretend openoffice
or:
USE=”java” emerge –-pretend openoffice-bin
To prevent the installation of any Java dependencies, simply change the “java” flag above to “-java”. To perform the actual install, the command (Use flag omitted – enter it if necessary) is:
emerge openoffice or: emerge openoffice-bin
Uninstallation
To remove OpenOffice.org from your system use the command below that correspond to the package that you selected at the time of installation:
emerge –-unmerge openoffice
or
emerge –-unmerge openoffice-bin
Additional Information
More information about Gentoo Linux, Portage, and the emerge command can be found at http://www.gentoo.org.