OO_upgrade and launch

[clh333]

I am in the process of configuring a Linux machine and recently installed Red Hat 9 as the OS. I made a fairly comprehensive install so I opted for both Gnome and KDE. Open Office 1.0 was also part of the install. Today I upgraded the OO installation to include 1.1.4. (in a separate directory) I did not remove the 1.0 files.

The specific problem I'm having is that the launch menu (in KDE and Gnome) still points to the 1.0 files, and I cannot locate a tool or find documentation on a procedure to correct this. If anyone knows how to re-direct the applications menu to point to new apps, please let me know.

Thanks,
-CH-

[GavinX]

You would need to specify where you installed the new version of Open Office. Then we may be able to help.

Suffice it to say that in KDE you need to run this command as a normal user in a console: "kmenuedit" (do not include the " "). Having done that, locate Open Office and select each component of it separately. On the right hand side of the window, you will see several options, one of which is "command". In that area, just put the command where the new Open Office is located. E.g. you may see something like "/usr/bin/ooimpress %U" as the command for the old one. If the new one is located in "/opt", the new command will be "/opt/ooimpress %U". Of course, all of this would be without the " ".

Remember, you have to do it for each component of Open Office.

As far as Gnome goes, I'm at a loss. Haven't used it in ages.

By the way, while you are at it why did you not try Open Office 2.0 beta version? It's soon to be released and it is fully functional. I'm using it without a hitch.

GavinX

[Pafnoutios]

This might be PATH based. If the menu items don't specify the directory path, but only the executable file name, it may be that the 1.0 directory is earlier in the PATH list than the 1.1.4 directory. There may be something in /etc you can change to modify the directory order listing in the PATH variable. What you would have to do would be distribution dependent, I think, and I don't know what it is for RH. It's kind of a shame, since I had RH9 on one of my machines for almost 2 years.

[clh333]

When I ran the install it created a folder under /opt with the new files. The problem that I had was that version 1.1.4 has a new common interface which calls all of the sub-componenets. Instead of calling oodraw, oomath, oowriter, etc. as was the case for the 1.0 installation, all are called from soffice, which I found in the /program subdir under /opt/oo... etc.

Once I found how to call the program v.1.1.4 I was able to use kmenuedit to create a new entry and call the soffice executable from that. The docs say I can run the install again with the "repair" option to uninstall the old version. That can wait. I have other more important configuration issues to deal with.

I'm running RH9 after trying Fedora 4 and Fedora 3. Fedora 4 had the OO 2.0 beta on it and I found I was constantly crashing something. I also tried ubuntu, but gave up after package upgrade issues. I have books that deal with RH9 or 8 or 7 so I feel my resource library supports RH9 better than the newer versions, which appear to be less stable anyway.

I got the install in, solved an eth0 problem (cable, wouldn't you know... worked before, #^%^*!...), got the sound card to work and installed a printer situated on the WINxx P2P
network. (SMB recognizes the WIN network but network does not see Linux box yet.)
Figured out rpm and installed J2RE and added this upgrade to OOffice. Next upgrade KDE. Eventually this box becomes a server / utility box with mail and database servers running on it.

Thanks for all your help.

-CH-