OpenOffice.org 1.0.1rc2
=======================
I've finally got a build of 1.0.1 that seems to work well, and 1.0.1rc2
should be available from the mirrors [1] by the time you read this. If you
wish to stay with 1.0.0-6 while possible bugs are shaken out, please see the
section about the new 'testing' apt source below. The official 1.0.1
tarball is likely to be released this week; the remaining issues are with
non-Linux builds.
There is a detailed changelog for 1.0.0->1.0.1 here:
http://tools.openoffice.org/releases/changelog.html
Unfortunately, upstream have not provided a good upgrade solution for user
settings from 1.0.0 to 1.0.1. Having seen corruption of settings in the
user directory by 1.0.0 on several occasions, I am not prepared to provide a
simplistic upgrade script that simply copies settings over from the 1.0.0,
because any corruption will be carried forward and produce unexpected
additional problems. My guess is that once 1.0.1 is out and users start
discussing/complaining on the upstream lists, there will be discussion about
how settings can be presevered and possibly a better solution can be found.
For now I have modified our package to do the following:
- Place the user install in ~/OpenOffice.org1.0.1
(this is the default for installs from the .tar.gz, too)
- If the wrapper sees an old settings directory in ~/.openoffice,
print a warning that this directory is no longer used so the user can
delete it when they are sure that the upgrade to 1.0.1 was sucessful.
This way, it is possible to leave the settings from 1.0.0 around so that
downgrades are possible should 1.0.1 turn out to be problematic.
New 'testing' apt source
========================
After having uploaded a broken 1.0.1rc1 and confused a couple of people
during the short period it was available, I have decided to make a new
'testing' source available in addition to the 'unstable' source:
- testing -
deb <server-url> testing main contrib
- Contains Package versions that have had a period of testing in 'unstable'
and are not known to introduce new problems.
- When a package set has been used for few days and is known not to
introduce new bugs, it is made available in 'testing' by copying the
Packages indexes from 'unstable'
- Should be suitable for running in production environments.
- Not exactly equivalent to the current testing/Woody in the Debian
archives - these packages are still compiled on sid systems, although I
try to make it easy to install on a Woody machine by mirroring the
packages from sid that are needed (currently libgcc1 and possibly
libfreetype6 in the near future). If we get round to explicitly
compiling packages on Woody systems, they will end up in a 'woody'
aptable source.
- unstable -
deb <server-url> unstable main contrib
- This is the place where new packages versions will be made available
first.
- After a period of testing (the length depending on how significant the
changes were), and provided no new bugs are found, the package versions
will be made available in 'testing':
[upload] ---> unstable --[manual intervention]--> testing
OpenOffice.org for PowerPC
==========================
Jan has been working hard on the PowerPC port, but progress is very slow.
gcc 2.95 is no longer supported by the upstream developer for 1.0.1 (there
is only one volunteer in addition to Jan), and there are still problems with
builds of 1.0.1 with gcc3.1.1 on Debian and SuSE. Several problems have
been uncovered in the glibc ports and other libraries. It looks like an
official 1.0.1 upstream version will not be available at the same time as
the other architectures, and consequently a .deb will also take longer.
Thanks Jan for your hard work on this!
Preperations for upload to Debian main
======================================
These are the remaining showstoppers that I am aware of:
- Remove non-free Java build dependency. At build time, Java is needed to
create a set of XML files which are essential for the rest of the build.
There are also Java components which are built later on and need non-free
Java JDK APIs. We are hoping to alter the bootstrap process to use a
free JDK and not build the rest. Peter is working on this.
- Fix the remaining policy issues in the packaging. There are some files
with the wrong permissions, and the documentation is not all installed in
/usr/share/doc. We also need manpages for the openoffice and
spadmin binaries. Is there anyone willing to put a manpage together for
us? That is a contribution you can make without having to build the
package.
- Make .debs of libstlport4.5 that have been compiled with gcc3.0/1 and
upload.
These are now packaging/policy-level issues so the .debs themselves should
be reasonably stable now for normal use. You may like to consider using the
new 'testing' apt source if you wish to install OOo in production
environments.
Reporting bugs
==============
Just a reminder, we are able to use the Debian bug tracking system (BTS)
even though the packages are not yet 'official' [2]. You can report bugs
using the command:
reportbug openoffice.org
German dictionaries
===================
Rene Engelhard has packaged the German dictionaries. Depending on the
variant you wish to use, you can get them from our OOo mirrors with:
apt-get install openoffice.org-spellcheck-de-de
apt-get install openoffice.org-spellcheck-de-at
apt-get install openoffice.org-spellcheck-de-ch
After installation, these dictionaries will be available in OOo, but you
must enable them in
Tools->Options->Language Settings->Writing aids->Edit modules
-> Language=German
Apart from that, we hope you enjoy 1.0.1!
Chris Halls
Debian OpenOffice.org team
[1] http://www.linux-debian.de/openoffice/mirrors.html
[2] http://bugs.debian.org/openoffice.org
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