Just joined the list- users having trouble with gnome panels when using LibreOffice

users
#1

This seems to be directly correlated to the install of LibreOffice 4.1.

OS is Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS 32-bit. Hardware varies- mostly AMD64
dual-core E350 and E450.

I'm trying to confirm other issues- users have reported it's happens
more when using toolbar things like color background of cell to
yellow.

I've confirmed panels going away and panels going transparent.

Some users have figured out that they can choose Log Out and then just
cancel and get their environment back. Clicking Log Out is a
challenge but doable when the panel disappears- tooltips show where
the buttons are.

I've also found out that I can ssh in, su - to the user, kill
gnome-panel, and then relaunch it, and that also restores their
desktop to function.

#2

Tony,

This is Gnome 2 on Maverick? I am not sure if anyone here knows enough about gnome-panel to answer you.

Have you tried the Ubuntu or Gnome forums?

#3

10.04 LTS is lucid. We never went to gnome 3 since it broke too many
workflows. We looked at cinnamon and mate and they made our workstations
unstable. It's weird that an application could disrupt the ui as much as
we're seeing. Our users are used to their workstations staying up for
months and installing libre office has been much more disruptive than a
simple application install should have been.

#4

Greetings,
I have been reading this thread, but since I do not use Ubuntu, I have no direct experience to add to this discussion. However, I may make one suggestion: check the age of your video card and computer. I use Slackware Linux and I have had KDE4 (QT-based) and xfce (GTK-based) desktop stability problems for the last 3 or 4 Slackware releases. My computer and its ATI Radeon AGP video card were over 10 years old. I recently upgraded my computer to 2-year old technology and used an ATI 4350 PCI Express video card and the stability problems went away. I suspect that the Linux devs no longer have access to the old hardware (AGP in this case) and do not test the new code with it. Therefore, it is a crap shot for new Linux versions to fully function with old hardware.

As a footnote: After the upgrade, I took the old computer and went from 1GB to 3GB of RAM, but that alone did not solve the desktop stability problems. Switching from the old ATI AGP to an even older Nvidia AGP I had lying around, and switching from the default nouveau driver, because it would not find the old card, to the "nv" driver, got the old system working stably again. But it is a "bailing wire" approach and is destined to fail in the future.

HTH.
Girvin Herr

#5

I may have forgotten to mention that I have OpenOffice 4.0.x and
LibreOffice 4.1.x on the same computers.

That may me an issue, I'm thinking now.

I've set up a couple of users as a test case- one with OpenOffice
4.0.x only, and one with LibreOffice 4.1.x only.

And I also should have mentioned that the source of the programs is
from openoffice.org and libreoffice.org, from the tar.gz of deb files,
installed with dpkg -i without complaints.

WRT using another distro, yes, I am looking into that. Like I said,
Cinnamon and Mate (Mint) gave us troubles WRT stability. Cinnamon
especially was crashing every couple of days on a user with lots of
windows. XFCE Desktop is one I've been using myself as primary for a
while- it seems solid, so we might go with that, though it'll look
different and have menus in different places. In particular, the
Debian wheezy XFCE has been very solid for me on various laptops,
running from USB3 stick, etc. , so I'm thinking I may try a couple of
people on that once I've got a clean replicable install that has most
of the expected icons in the right places..

No need to be sorry- they are good questions, and people who think
they can get a quick solution without some back and forth are fooling
themselves.

#6

Thanks for the comments. Yes, Ubuntu seems especially
aggressive with "out with the old" mentality in spite of having
released named "Long Term Support".

No, the boxes are not old- they are Dell Zino, Zotac, and Asus
boxes purchased within the three, two, and one year, approximately,
respectively. They are AMD64 low-power APU devices with integrated
Radeon.

My impression is that Debian has a much better record with regards
to preventing regression, so I'm probably going to test with them.
I probably won't be switching to anything that's not dpkg-based
unless there's a compelling reason- it would mess with too many
scripts.

#7

Hi :slight_smile:
Debian has a reputation for being old and long-in-the-tooth by the
time it releases anything doesn't it? I'm not sure if it's a fair
rep. There are tons of Ubuntu spin-offs or 'clones'.

Does Xfce have it's menus and toolbar at the bottom of the screen by
default? If so it might not be such a bad leap because many office
workers probably have a Windows machine at home or some passing
familiarity with it.

To install LibreOffice, OpenOffice etc alongside each other does
require a bit of trickery.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
Did the crashes usually happen when both were open at the same time as
each other? The Quickstarter counts as having one open.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#8

I may have forgotten to mention that I have OpenOffice 4.0.x and
LibreOffice 4.1.x on the same computers.

That may me an issue, I'm thinking now.

Yes could be.

I've set up a couple of users as a test case- one with OpenOffice
4.0.x only, and one with LibreOffice 4.1.x only.

:slight_smile:

And I also should have mentioned that the source of the programs is
from openoffice.org and libreoffice.org, from the tar.gz of deb files,
installed with dpkg -i without complaints.

We generally recommend you install from PPA's not from the website. Our
debian packages on the website are not packaged explicitly for Ubuntu --
much better to stick to PPA's which are packaged by Bjoern (Canonical
employee) specifically for Ubuntu. If I were you, I'd purge LIbreOffice
completely and install through ppa without OpenOffice installed.

Best,
Joel

#9

I have been using Ubuntu 12.04LTS with MATE as the desktop, since I do not like Unity or GNOME 3. I do not know why MATE would cause any problems, if it is installed correctly [their site has specific install instructions for each version of Ubuntu it supports]. I have had no problems with it since I started using it almost 2 years ago. I did not upgrade 10.04LTS till 12.04LTS was out for a month or two.

Soon Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will be out, but I may not upgrade to it for a few months, just to make sure it works OK on a testing platform.

My current platform is a64-bit 4 core "custom built" desktop that was bought about 3 years ago. Ubuntu 11.xx and 12.xx did not like the onboard video card, since it gave me some boot time issues, but a low end replacement card worked just fine.

As for "spin off" and "clones" of Ubuntu, I would stick with Ubuntu. I tried Linux Mint, but it would not recognize one brand of network printers but would see it if I used the USB port. So that was a show stopper for me, since that printer was my main inkjet - Canon 6220 and now 5420 as backup.

I never use the Quickstarter option, since in the past I had trouble with updating some of the extensions with that option active. A few seconds of waiting should not "hurt" anyone.

#10

Hi :slight_smile:
Ohh, i usually find the ones from the website better than the ones in
the repos. I haven't really tried the PPAs often though, to be fair.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#11

Joel
I never heard of the PPA over website version install recommendation before.

I always download the new version I want to install from the web site. That way I do not have to upgrade to any version I do not want to use. I will be running the 4.1.x line till the 4.2.x line gets to the .3 or .4 version. Will the PPA allow that to happen or will it keep telling me that there is a new 4.2.x version it wants me to install over the 4.1.4, or 4.1.5, 4.1.6 version I will have installed on my system?

#12

Honestly not sure - if there is a new release in the PPA I suspect
you'll get notified but I run master most of the time. I do have a ppa
install of 4.2. rc right now and don't get annoying warnings despite it
not being the newest RC. If you talk to devs they'll almost always
suggest sticking with the PPA - we've had reports that downloads from
libreoffice instead of through ppa can cause some issue (particularly
with Unity but in general just best to stick with ppa IMHO).

Best,
joel

#13

Hi :slight_smile:
That is interesting to hear what the devs would suggest. It's
certainly the case for most other software but i thought LibreOffice
was one of the exceptions to the rule.

Thanks Joel!
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#14

We generally recommend you install from PPA's not from the website. Our
debian packages on the website are not packaged explicitly for Ubuntu --
much better to stick to PPA's which are packaged by Bjoern (Canonical
employee) specifically for Ubuntu. If I were you, I'd purge LIbreOffice
completely and install through ppa without OpenOffice installed.

...

I never heard of the PPA over website version install recommendation
before.

quote

Most of the packages in this PPA have only experienced minor testing
-- in fact it is the place to enable a wider audience to test packages
before they are published into the distro proper. In general, this PPA
is _not_ for the average user to install without a closer look (if it
would be, its packages would be in the main repositories). OTOH, it is
_way_ _better_ to use packages from this PPA than using the *.deb
files that The Document Foundation provides upstream. So, _if_ you
want to be on the bleeding edge, do it here, not with upstream
*.debs."

end quote from https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/ppa

...

#15

That is the problem with PPAs, the bleeding edge version.

I would never recommend the PPA to people because it is the "bleeding edge" version. I only recommend the versions of LO that have .4 or larger at its "tail end". That is 4.1.2 out, but 4.1.4 in. I waited till 4.1.4 to upgrade from the last of the 4.0.x line. And, if nothing changes, I may wait for 4.2.4 to upgrade to that new line.

If the PPA only had the release versions of LO and not the "nightly build" or "RC" type of version of LO, then I would have to look into using the PPA again.

I see no real problem in installing the .deb or the .rpm version of LO. Sure it has a few steps, but you know exactly which version you are installing. Right now, it is simple to do. 1 - download the files. 2 - un-archive them. 3 - rename the long folder name to Lib for the installer and Lib2 for the help pack. That is easier for me than typing the long folder names in the Terminal. [yes there may be a shorter way, but I keep forgetting it] 4 - go to the proper folder by doing "cd Lib" then "cd DEBS". 5 - run the command "sudo dpkg -i *.deb". Maybe one day I will make a script to do the #4 and #5 actions for me, but it is not really needed.

Actually, it would be nice if someone included a .sh script in the packages so once it is un-archived, then all you need to to is run the script instead of going through all the steps to install it yourself.

Yes, PPAs would be easier, but I do not want the "bleeding edge" versions.

Anything to make it easier for our Linux users would be nice. Actually, it would be nice to have a script that would have some of the functions like the Windows installer does. That way it would be easier and you get to easily choose not to add the other languages, like French and Spanish, during the install. You give Windows users that option, but you require Linux users to include those languages unless they go into the .deb files and remove the proper packages needed, for installing the other languages that you do not want, without messing up the .deb or .rpm install. So having a script that asks you the language and dictionary questions would help. Actually, HP has their printer driver installer in a script, for the .deb installs. You run the script and are asked a question or three during the process. Then the script does all of the hard work, including making sure all of the dependencies are installed, if nay are needed. Of course, they have a MAKE command in the process that the LO installer would not need, but it is an idea.

#16

Um, Joel...?