Hi Everyone

LibreOffice crashed one too many times yesterday and i decided to try OpenOffice instead. I was using LibreOffice 3.3.3 and i've switched to OpenOffice 3.3.0 - this is in a hard drive install of Knoppix 6.7.0 DVD version - running on an old compaq presario with 512mB ram, an AMD Athlon XP processor 2400+ and a 40gB hard drive.

To my surprise the process was quite painless and so far I have had no crashes with OpenOffice - doing just the same things that were causing crashes/freezes before - opening, writing in and closing .odt files, cutting and pasting text to and from other applications.

1 ** I uninstalled all packages with 'libreoffice' in the title using synaptic with the option 'mark for complete removal'.

2 ** I deleted the two configuration folders in my /home/knoppix directory i.e.
/home/knoppix/.libreoffice and /home/knoppix/.config/.libreoffice

3 ** Then i downloaded the latest version of openoffice from:

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html

[choosing the appropriate language and OS and/or distro] - which in my case was in the LINUX INTEL DEB column:

download:

OOo_3.3.0_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-GB.tar.gz

4 ** so I cd to my downloads folder and unpacked it with:

tar -xvzf OOo_3.3.0_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-GB.tar.gz

to give the folder:

OOO330_m20_native_packed-1_en-GB.9567

[there are also some read me's inside this, good to check them out]

5 ** then cd to the sub-folder 'DEBS' within this folder and run:

dpkg -i *.deb

6 ** lastly cd to the sub-folder within 'DEBS' called 'desktop-integration'

and repeat the command [though there was only one .deb file this time]

dpkg -i *.deb

7 ** then all that is left to do is to put an icon on your desktop or in the panel and configure OpenOffice to your liking using the choices in Tools | Options. Good to support LibreOffice as truly free software but also sometimes you need something that just works.

Best wishes, John