KOffice not opening as well as AbiWord

1

Hey, newbie, Chompjil here, when I installed KOffice from haikuware.com, I ran the installer and such but even after rebooting click on it and going to it’s directory does nothing, even more unforcanaltely when trying AbiWord as a second atempt, (I write scripts so at the very least need word processing)
and it said

Could not open “Abiword” with application “Tracker” (Invalid Argument) Would you like to find some other suitible aplication

I am thinking about Scribus (thanks Giova84)but KOffice does have a slideshow program, (which will be helpful for school and such).

Hope this doesnt bother anybody ----Chompjil

2

Same thing here, running on VB on iMac latest stable release.

3

I’m running Win7 on an HP Pavilion p7-1007c in VBox too, hmm could it pertain to Virtualization, doubt it, but could be :?

4

KOffice was ported, originally, on Haiku Alpha 2 (if i remember correctly) and no longer works on recent Haiku revisions (as on Alpha 4.1) due libraries incompatibility. The same is for Abiword.
We need fresh ports. In these days i am looking how to port Calligra but it seems a little bit hard to port (it also needs kde libraries)

5

I forgot to say that you can use ThinkFree Office: http://haikuware.ru/software/tf4installer it also include a slideshow features through “Show” :slight_smile:

6

I guess it worked for you, as I have seen it, but for me it doesnt run, hmm, does OpenOffice seems possible, or does it require depenices as well?

7

As far as I know, OpenOffice is a porting nightmare. LibreOffice, being a fork, has the same problem. Best to port something that uses an abstraction library anyway.

8

LibreOffice does use such a library… however porting it would be akin to porting swt or qt itself I would imagine.

9

It uses its own custom library, and so porting that library would not allow any other apps to run on Haiku. And besides that, it requires a very large number of 3rd-party libraries to run as well.

10

You need java installed first:

Get it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61946213/j2sdk-august.tar.xz
Unpack it and put in /boot/apps

Then run the installer script. ThinkFree really works great, but it isn’t free (despite the name!). In time I’m sure another office program will get ported (let’s hope).

11

Ah, that’s a shame. I am a huge fan of LibreOffice, it’s installed on all my computers and laptops at home. Hopefully as Haiku nears R1, the folks at LibreOffice could be convinced to help port it over. I think that would be a huge coup for the Haiku team. One can dream I suppose. =)

12

Actually, Java is optional (and not bundled) for the latest release of OpenOffice. However, there are plenty of other barriers too.

Java is messy, slow, and a big security vulnerability that allows non-authenticated applets to launch any application (just Google that). Once Haiku has an official package repository and a package manager GUI, I hope Java won’t be allowed in it (if you really want Java, you will have to get it from a 3rd-party source).

13

Actually, Java is optional (and not bundled) for the latest release of OpenOffice. However, there are plenty of other barriers too.[/quote]

I think he meant ThinkFree Office needs Java.

14

Tested out Google Drive (or Docs :P) and it worked 100%! I was able to write a report and make a presentation, only problem you have to be online, so for now StyledEdit is working ok :slight_smile: when im offline (well sorta)

15

Actually, Java is optional (and not bundled) for the latest release of OpenOffice. However, there are plenty of other barriers too.[/quote]

I was referring to ThinkFree, not open/libreoffice.

While I’m with you on not being a fan of java (I’m a C/C++/prolog programmer), particularly on haiku where I’d much prefer native C++ apps, I have to say that some of those points aren’t exactly true.

In theory JIT compiled code can be faster than pre-compiled code, because it can optimise at run time to avoid cache misses etc, but despite this advantage what tends to slow java down is garbage collection and poor coding.

You can’t really do much about poor coding, and it’s everywhere in all languages, but maybe more so with java because it’s so commonly used for teaching and thus more inexperienced programmers use it.

Security is also VM implementation specific (and to some extent OS specific), and is in no way an inherent weakness of the programming language. VMs sand-box the java programs being run, providing a barrier between the application and the rest of the code running on the machine, and its when this is not done properly that security issues arise. If anything the java language itself is more secure than c and c++, which are (1) prone to all sorts of security issues due to being at a lower level than java, and (2) are not sand boxed.

I also don’t see any way that java, or any other software, won’t be allowed into the haiku package repository. I mean, you can’t refuse something on the grounds that you dont like it!

16

But you can refuse it on the grounds that it is full of security holes (just Google that)! And yes, VM’d software can be better/faster than non-VM’d software. Which is the case in JavaScript, which is what (along with NodeJS) is going to kill Java.

Java’s security holes are entirely Sun/Oracle’s fault. If the same guys that wrote V8 were to rewrite Java, it’d be a lot better.

17

But that’s just conjecture. You’d have to point out specific issues to refuse it, and these are not things you’re currently aware of. If you check a few security vulnerability tracking websites (e.g. http://www.eeye.com/resources/security-center/research/zero-day-tracker, http://securitytracker.com/, CERT Vulnerability Notes Database) you can see that the majority of vulnerabilities are in C/C++ software, with relatively few being in java. And these are past problems that are now fixed, who knows what security problems are currently present in any piece of software? I suppose you could argue that you’ll refuse a piece of software if it’s track record for vulnerabilities is below a certain level, but what happens when a piece of software that everyone uses goes below that threshold, you just kick it out?

If you google for vulnerabilities in Java, sure you’ll find that it has had them, lots of them even. But the same is true of any number of other commonly used pieces of software you might care to google for vulnerabilities in - apache, mysql, flash, nvidia drivers, opera, mozilla, skype, vmware, php and javascript, just to name some off of the top of my head.

[quote=waddlesplash]
And yes, VM’d software can be better/faster than non-VM’d software. Which is the case in JavaScript, which is what (along with NodeJS) is going to kill Java.[/quote]

Maybe javascript is better, who knows? And maybe it will become more popular. They are already both very popular languages. I don’t use either so I don’t really have an opinion. But a lot of developers use java, and a lot of industry and academia have a big investment in improving it (think of android for one thing) - I think it will take quite some killing to make people stop using it.

[quote=waddlesplash]
Java’s security holes are entirely Sun/Oracle’s fault. If the same guys that wrote V8 were to rewrite Java, it’d be a lot better.[/quote]

Uhm, those guys did write an implementation of java. That would be google, who developed both V8 and the davlik java VM. There are loads of java VMs out there besides the Sun/Oracle implementation (see List of Java virtual machines - Wikipedia).

I guess the point of all this is that you can’t fault the language itself for the security of a single VM implementation, particularly when there are so many alternative VMs around. The language itself is not insecure, and is actually inherently way more secure than C/C++ and a host of other languages.

Anyway, we’re way off topic here. If you want to continue the discussion you can find me on irc.

18

what what what?

If only…

Anyway, any criticisms of the layout/icons? Icons too bright? No clue what the icons mean?

19

For me is clear :slight_smile:
But… Is only a mockup, right? :slight_smile:

20

[quote=Giova84]
But… Is only a mockup, right? :-)[/quote]

Sadly yes.

Abiword at osdrawer last compiled and ran on R1A2. It still might compile if someone wants to try. Otherwise porting Abiword to Haiku is a suggested GSOC project by both Haiku and Abiword for this years GSOC.