I often just download the latest releases of OO from openoffice.org and run the installer as an ordinary user. That doesn't install it system wide, but for me that's ok.

I'm using the beta release now which you can get from here.

http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/s....1beta2/#linux

Just untar/unzip it with: tar zxvf OOpackagename

Then cd into the directory and run the installer (i forget the name of the installer) like this: ./setup (or whatever it's called).

I suppose that if you did this as root it would work just as well installing it system wide. Just do apt-get remove openoffice first.

Adam