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I need to setup OpenOffice in a linux box that will never have X installed. Every time I run the setup program of the OpenOffice installer it complains that the system does not have an X Terminal. I am using OOo_3.1.0_LinuxIntel_install_wJRE_en-US.tar. I have done this headless install for version 2.4, but we are having some performance issues and we will like to test the 3.1 version. The rpm -i *rpm does not work, since it is also looking for libgnome inside it.

We are trying to install the system in a CenOS 5.1. Any ideas are welcome?

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Out of curiosity, how will you be using OpenOffice on this box without a visual interface? –  tomjedrz Jun 8 '09 at 16:23
Glad you ask. I use this service as a server to convert word documents to pdf from all our websites. Basically using the API (REST), I send a word document and receive back a PDF document. Hope that answers the question. –  Geo Jun 8 '09 at 16:38

4 Answers 4

Here's the procedure I use to install Openoffice

tar -xzf .../OOo_3.1.X....
cd OOO[...]
mv *integration*.rpm desktop-integration
rpm -i *.rpm

The rpm ooobasis3.1-gnome-integration*.rpm has a dependency on libgnomevfs and you don't need this package to run/install OpenOffice.

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Why not just install an X Terminal (ie, xterm)? A quick look at a random xterm RPM suggests that you can install one without needing to install an X server.

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This server is in production, our policies do not allow us to install software without doing a whole lot of testing. That is why installing services is a difficult path. –  Geo Jun 8 '09 at 18:17

If you don't want to go with the package management of your distro (really think about it, they will provide security updates!)

  • Install the package that contains the xauth binary (ssh X forwarding won't work otherwise)
  • ssh -Y $targethost
  • Install with your local X Terminal
    • In case you don't have a running linux use cygwins xterm to emulate the behaviour
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Using Yum,

Find the openoffice "headless" package and install it.


After that, use the following command

./soffice -nologo -nodefault -norestore -nocrashreport -nolockcheck -headless -nofirststartwizard -accept=socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp

and run it from the oo installation directory

Note that the headless package is no longer available on Apache OpenOffice 3.4

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