Random thoughts, tips & tricks about Slackware-Linux, Lego and Star Wars

LibreOffice 3.4.1 package for Slackware and what to do about missing sources…

July 21st, 2011 by Niels Horn in ,

libreofficeAnother version of was released recently, 3.4.1.

When I first "created" the SlackBuild for LibreOffice (I actually adapted rworkman's OpenOffice.org script with his permission) it was because I was convinced that it would substitute OpenOffice.org eventually, as "open source" and "Oracle" did not sound like a happy marriage. And it seems that I was right, as the future of OpenOffice.org is at least doubtful, with Oracle trying to dump it at the Apache Foundation, but that causes some serious license or at least philosophical conflicts. At best, OO.o's future looks "murky". I also think the future of Java looks very complicated as long as Oracle is involved, but that's a whole other story…

Back to the LibreOffice SlackBuild.

It (the script) is a bit of a messy hack to transform the pre-compiled packages into Slackware packages so that they can be maintained and installed or upgraded using the standard Slackware tools, like "installpkg" and "upgradepkg". It does not really "build" the software, like AlienBOB's script does. If you want to build LibreOffice from source, and have the resources (=hardware), expertise and patience (=couple of hours) to do so, get and give it a try. This might really give you a better and faster LibreOffice, but be warned: this is not for everyone. So, with the idea of serving a larger audience, I'll keep maintaining my own script, so that everyone searching for a solution at or using can "build" a LibreOffice Slackware package in just a couple of minutes.

And then I started to receive feedback.

I already maintained quite a few SlackBuild scripts - some more popular than others. But I never received so many e-mails as I have received about LibreOffice… And when a new version is released, I have a problem. Because the download link to the "source" gets broken, as it is moved to the "old" directory on their server.
I do respond to every message I receive, but I also have a full-time job (writing SlackBuild scripts does not pay the bills) so an answer might take a few days. And with all the new releases of LibreOffice, I have been receiving *lots* of e-mails complaining that the link to the source is "broken". So here is a little explanation on what to do when a new version is released:

  1. Get the previous sources from the "old" directory

    The Document Foundation keeps previous versions of LibreOffice available for download. But only previous versions, so I cannot link to them when they're still current. You can download these previous versions from . Just pick the version you want (and which the SlackBuild was written for), pick "rpm" and the architecture you need ("x86″ for 32-bits and "x86_64″ for 64-bits). There you will find the "install-rpm" files needed to build the previous release.

  2. Get the latest sources and try to use them

    With the latest version of my SlackBuild script, you might be able to build the newer version. I tried to make it as flexible as possible, but the folks that package the LibreOffice binaries have changed the naming scheme and package structure a few times in the past, so I cannot guarantee that it will work. But it's worth a try.

Having said all this, I submitted today the new scripts for LibreOffice and for the latest language packs.
As always, if you can't wait for the scripts to be approved by the SlackBuilds admins, you can get the pre-built packages (or just the SlackBuild script) from my .

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