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Thanks Gordon & Tom
I'm afraid that the 40 minutes suggested is rather more than a tad
optmistic e.g.
Items 1-5 inc will each take me some considerable time i.e.
they all involve me far beyond my comfort zone!
But thanks for trying to help
ATB
Philip Jordan
Hi 
It is kinda overkill to install Ubuntu purely for this issue. On the
other hand it would free you from the sorts of problems you seem to
dislike about Windows generally. You don't need to constantly keep
buying new things so often and new computers every couple of years
just in order to keep doing what you have always done.
Most people just start by installing a few non-Microsoft things and
then realise how painful MS makes things. So those people tend to
install more and more non-Microsoft things and only then move away
from Windows completely. At which time they find all the then
familiar non-MS programs they have been becoming familiar with or a
choice of similar things. Of course MS are unlikely to be happy about
people finding out that the alternatives are not only better but are
also often free so they apparently put a lot of work into trying to
prevent people from staying outside their eco-system.
Regards from
Tom
What edition of Windows 8.1 are you using?
What localization of Windows 8.1 are you using?
jonathon
Hi
I'm not sure why you are having a problem downloading LibreOffice, nor
why you are apparently only getting a small chunk of it, nor why you
haven't been this unlucky before.
There are too many factors to explore. Have you tried rebooting the
router? Are you using a wireless connection or is your machine
plugged into a network by ethernet cable? If it is wireless is the
machine sitting in a different place from normal - do you have direct
line-of-sight to the router? If it is an ethernet cable to a network
then is there a firewall blocking or limiting access to certain
things? Is the firewall on your machine blocking or limiting access?
Is Internet Explorer infected with malware? What anti-virus are you
using and have you updated it's virus definitions and done a complete
scan in the last few days. There's a zero-day exploit that uses flash
player to exploit Windows machines at the moment that tons of people
have fallen foul of (hence "zero-day").
The easiest way of working around a lot of the problems is to try a
second web-browser.
We are not seeking to place blame or fob you off with some excuse. We
are trying to find the fastest way of getting LibreOffice onto your
computer.
In the process we might find what the problem was that is blocking you
from downloading the full download, we might clear up some
misunderstanding on our part or yours or both but for us all that is
secondary to getting LibreOffice onto your machine.
Plenty of people have successfully used Internet Explorer to download
LibreOffice and had no problems installing it. So it does work. What
we are trying to cope with is a situation where you haven't even had
the full download and we don't know why and none of us can poke around
on your machine to try the 'obvious' or usual problems that arise on a
Windows machine.
By all means follow Charles' advice to use Internet Explorer again to
download again from the correct website again. If it doesn't work
again then we learn nothing useful but go ahead.
If you try to download a 2nd web-browser and successfully do that then
it cuts out a whole bunch of possible problems (such as all that stuff
about wireless issues and firewalls and maybe about recent infections
etc). If you successfully manage to install the 2nd web-browser then
again we learn a lot. If that web-browser does a better job of
downloading LibreOffice then that solves the main chunk of the main
problem you seem to be having.
Regards from
Tom
In some answer to Jonathan's Windows 8.1 queries
I'm not really competent to answer them BUT
As I've said I live in the UK
& to that fact & that the Machine is a Toshiba Laptop
can I add that it was bought a month ago
i.e. with presumably uptodate Software
Thanks Tom
Can I say I think you have the picture!
Meanwhile, I'll continue to look @ Ubantu
etc as helpfully set out by Gordon
I'll also *maybe* look at taking my Laptop back
to Staples, where I got it a month ago
Thanks again
Philip Jordan
Hi
Yeh, the 40mins does kinda assume that downloads all work correctly
and that you have some experience of doing it so that you don't have
to stop and read everything and maybe even do a bit of research to
check the accuracy or background of the various things that crop up.
We could help you try out Ubuntu another day maybe, if you are up for it.
Right now it's probably better to just focus on the one issue.
Regards from
Tom
Hi
I think that just installing Firefox or some other web-browser (people
seem to like Chrome these days) and LibreOffice deals with most of the
problems.
I'm not saying the Internet Explorer and MS Office are all bad all the
time. I use both quite often myself.
I try to avoid them but they sometimes have their moments. Also
people seem to get in quite a mess using them so i have to know enough
to be able to handle routine issues.
One problem with Windows 8 or 8.1 is that the interface and ways of
doing things have changed radically from Xp/Win7 or [shudders] Vista
and all that went before them. However i get the impression that it's
the new way Windows is going to be in the future so it could be worth
spending time getting comfortable with it. As with all big change
like that it is very annoying to have been forced into but if you want
to stay with Windows then there is no choice.
Of course moving to Ubuntu or any of the others (even Android or
Chrome or iThings) would also be a huge change and take a lot of
getting used to.
The difference is that with most of them (ok not with iThings, Chrome
or Android) but definitely with Ubuntu, Mint and almost all others you
are always given choices. Such as being able to keep the way things
"look and feel" much the same even when they try to push more big
changes any time in the future. They give a default but you can
usually choose something else if you prefer.
Windows seldom gives much choice and has a tendency to suddenly push
quite big changes in the way things appear to work.
Regards from
Tom
In some answer to Jonathan's Windows 8.1 queries
I'm not really competent to answer them BUT
IF you don't know which edition of Win8.1 nor which localization of Win
8.1 you are using, then who does know?
i.e. with presumably uptodate Software
Up-to-date does not mean that the crippleware that Microsoft is intent
on inflicting upon people was not installed on your laptop.
My guess is that one of the crippleware versions of Win 8.1 was
installed, and your options are:
* Purchase a non-crippled version of Win 8.1, and either install
yourself, or pay the dealer to install it;
* Either install, or pay the dealer to install a Linux or BSD distro;
* Live the fact that you have a crippled version of Windows, and that
every time you want to do something with software that requires more
sophistication that a three year old, you'll have major problems;
jonathon
* English - detected
* English
* English
<javascript:void(0);>
Err there AREN'T any "crippleware" versions of Windows 8.1
Where on earth did you get that from?
Thanks Gordon
That's very helpful
Philip
PS
FWIW
I know you were replying to
what someone else said but
that person probably should
not have introduced this C
word as it could be that it
use contravenes human
rights etc - bit like Benedict
saying what he did recently?!
Microsoft do seem to make things difficult... First their web browser changes the .msi extension to .man, which their operating system doesn't understand, and then their file browser hides the extension making it difficult to correct!
That has come up on this list before, and your earlier comment "why can't they save everyones time by saying at the outset that their software only downloads via certain browsers" does seem sensible. I've submitted a bug report suggesting that the downloads page should warn of the problems with Internet Explorer, and how to work around them:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88913
Checking this out with Internet Explorer 9 on Windows Vista, I found that a bar pops up at the bottom of Internet Explorer when downloading, from which you can click an arrow next to "Save" and select "Save As". That has the filename initially filled in as .man, but you can change it to .msi and it will then save the download with the correct .msi extension. Does that still work with newer versions of Internet Explorer? Of course, it does still require the user to know that this needs to be done!
Mark.
Philip Jordan wrote:
Microsoft doesn't talk about it much, but even they inadvertently called
one of those editions "crippled". They usually use a much more
marketspeak friendly term.
Their only virtue is that, in theory, malware won't run, because of the
restrictions that cripple the os. The practice is probably different.
jonathon
Hi
The problem with that is that Internet Explorer is usually completely
fine with it.
Most Windows users that i have met would be scared of trying anything
that might be difficult to download with Internet Explorer. To be
fair most them wouldn't have a clue how to install anything anyway and
would leave that to paid-for support or a family member or friend who
thinks they know what they are doing but may be fairly clueless or
biased themselves.
I like the idea of having some way of dealing with Internet Explorer
though. It might be possible to write a script that runs after the
download is complete and attempts to rename the .man to .msi.
I'm not sure about the best way to handle it. Obviously if the
renaming script doesn't find a .man then it should just quit quietly.
Another way might be to only run that script if the download page has
already identified that Internet Explorer was used. I think that
either way the script could be quite tiny and fast.
Regards from
Tom
"Charles-H. Schulz":
"> that either Windows 8.1 or some setting peculiar to some systems create a very bad
experience when installing software...
It is LO misconfigured Apache server which assigns 'application/x-troff-man' to MSI downloads is creating this experience. It worth noting that problem started occurring in 2012, and no one has fixed it so far.
Hello,
"Charles-H. Schulz":
"> that either Windows 8.1 or some setting peculiar to some systems
create
a very badexperience when installing software...
It is LO misconfigured Apache server which assigns
'application/x-troff-man'
to MSI downloads is creating this experience. It worth noting that
problem
started occurring in 2012, and no one >has fixed it so far.
If it has been reported on BZ I am happy to point this out at FOSDEM.
Thanks for the hint,
Charles.
charles.schulz wrote:
Hello,
"Charles-H. Schulz":
"> that either Windows 8.1 or some setting peculiar to some systems
create
a very badexperience when installing software...
It is LO misconfigured Apache server which assigns
'application/x-troff-man'
to MSI downloads is creating this experience. It worth noting that
problem
started occurring in 2012, and no one >has fixed it so far.If it has been reported on BZ I am happy to point this out at FOSDEM.
Thanks for the hint,
Charles.
I reported yesterday at:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88913
It was closed as invalid, since the rogue mirror hadn't been identified. I've tracked it down to mirror.catn.com and re-opened, so hopefully that will allow some progress to be made.
There are 2 other mirrors offered for the UK, which are both OK. I guess those of us in the UK have an approximately 1 in 3 chance of getting the dodgy one! (Although it doesn't matter to non-IE browsers).
Thanks,
Mark.
It looks like I was a bit quick to blame IE. It turns out it's 1 of the 3 mirrors in the UK which is misbehaving. Doesn't affect other browsers, as they seem to just use the .msi extension from the download URI, whereas IE uses the Content-Type header returned by the server and changes the extension to match.
Mark.
Tom Davies wrote:
Nevertheless, arguably incorrect browser behaviour. From the user's perspective, he's offered a file with a specific name and type on the server, and would expect it to appear with that name, especially as the application type is invisible to the user. If there's an extension/app-type mismatch, I for one would expect a warning at least before changing the extension. To be fair, the download dialogue already shows the incorrect extension, and it can be changed in the 'file open' dialogue if the user knows to do so. But IMO it shouldn't be so :-{
I notice the failing server also helpfully truncates all the file names to the same short string on the download web page, so the user cannot see what the name should be. (At least, that's how it looks in front of me now). Perhaps they would best be removed from the list of mirrors until they sort out their act.
Mike Scott wrote:
It looks like I was a bit quick to blame IE. It turns out it's 1 of the
3 mirrors in the UK which is misbehaving. Doesn't affect other browsers,
as they seem to just use the .msi extension from the download URI,
whereas IE uses the Content-Type header returned by the server and
changes the extension to match.Nevertheless, arguably incorrect browser behaviour. From the user's
perspective, he's offered a file with a specific name and type on the
server, and would expect it to appear with that name, especially as the
application type is invisible to the user.
To be fair, the URI doesn't necessarily reflect the true type. e.g. a PHP script can generate a PDF based on database content, but it's not very helpful if downloading that leads to a file with PDF content but a .php extension. I guess that's the kind of problem IE is trying to solve by using the Content-Type to determine the file name. One of those cases where it can't be right all the time either way.
There is a separate header (Content-Disposition I think, off the top of my head) where a filename can be specified, but the mirror in question doesn't send that header at all. I think I've found before that IE does honour that header if it's set.
If there's an
extension/app-type mismatch, I for one would expect a warning at least
before changing the extension. To be fair, the download dialogue already
shows the incorrect extension, and it can be changed in the 'file open'
dialogue if the user knows to do so. But IMO it shouldn't be so :-{
You only see that dialog if you choose Save > Save As when IE prompts for what to do with the download. If you just click "Save", it saves to a default folder with the default filename (.man in this case).
I notice the failing server also helpfully truncates all the file names
to the same short string on the download web page, so the user cannot
see what the name should be. (At least, that's how it looks in front of
me now).
That's not so helpful, although you wouldn't usually see that list at all when downloading via libreoffice.org.
Perhaps they would best be removed from the list of mirrors
until they sort out their act.
Having identified the problematic mirror, hopefully something will be done - either getting them to fix their configuration or, as you suggest, removing them from the list.
Mark.