Struggle to install LibreOffice on the PinePhone
#31
(06-15-2022, 08:12 AM)alaraajavamma Wrote: but it is not usable on phone screen
What do you mean by not usable on the phone screen? I did a short test and I could at least type on the PinePhone screen with LibreOffice and the PinePhone keyboard. Are there any technical problems to use LibreOffice on the phone screen?

I use softmaker textmaker and planmaker on an Android phone since many years. They have a touch interface. But since I write a lot, I always use those apps with a mini bluetooth keyboard and mouse, which works great.

To you think, LibreOffice on the PinePhone could be usable with a keyboard and a mouse on the phone screen, did you have only a problem with the small phone screen, or are there other technical problems?
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#32
Everything works with Phone screen also but the thing is that Libreoffice was not designed to Phone screen.
So everything is too small and user interface is not good without mouse and keyboard.
You can use it and it will do it job just fine but if you compare it application which is designed for phones it is quite horrible Big Grin

It is good when using external display - because thats what it is designed to do. But for me PP is not powerfull enough so I could enjoy using Libreoffice with external monitor.
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#33
Thanks, alaraajavamma. The problem is to find an Office application which is developed for a Linux phone. According to the system requirements, LibreOffice is not that demanding: Pentium III, 256 MB RAM, (512 MB recommended, 1,5 GB HD space. And the advantage for me personally is, that LibreOffice offers a database software (Base), an application which is also hard to find for a Linux phone. According to my own little experience, Office applications should not be so demanding, and I can imagine to use the PP also with a HDMI monitor, if everything works satisfyingy.
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#34
(02-06-2023, 02:57 AM)Sophia78 Wrote: The PinePhone runs on a Linux-based operating system, so you should be able to install LibreOffice using a package manager. Here are the steps to install it on a Debian-based distribution like Ubuntu or Manjaro.

You would hope it would be that easy, but the thread covers various ways that it wasn't.
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#35
Since Google killed the option to write to the exernal SD card I suffer. Since 05-06-2022 I struggled to install LibreOffice on the PinePhone. But when I installed it, it was so horrible that I have let go of it. I suffered for another 9 month without satisfying solution.

alaraajavamma said LibreOffice runs better on the PinePhone with the Flatpak version. LibreOffice can be installed from the flathub. But as a Linux beginner I failed to install it and received always annoying error messages.

Alaraajavamma seem to be an experienced Office user on the PinePhone. She said, she does not use LibreOffice on the PinePhone, she uses Abiword and Gnumeric. The development of both apps seem to have stopped about 10 years ago, but I still found a version to run it on a  Windows PC for both apps.

To install Abiword and Gnumeric on the PinePhone also takes some time for a Linux beginner. Even in the Open Store of Ubports, there are only spartanic word processors available.

I installed PostmarkedOS now on my PinePhone, since it supports the PinePhone keyboard. According to wibble, also on other Linux phones,  PostmarkedOS should support to write to the external SD card, which is something which is great to know. UBport does not support it on all phones.

As a Linux beginner, I had to find out, that PostmarketOS is Linux Alpine based, and we have to type these cryptic commands to install it:

Sudo apk add Abiword

Sudo apk add Gnumeric

Finally, I managed to install Abiword and Gnumeric on a PinePhone running POS. The PinePhone keyboard works with it. Both Abiword and Gnumeric run now. The apps look like Word and Excel twenty years ago, but what more do you want on a Linux phone? Has someone a better solution than Gnumeric and Abiword which I propose here also to install instead of LibreOffice on the PinePhone?
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#36
Libreoffice works with postmarketOS when you use the flatpak version.
Steps you need to do:

Disable suspend for a while because this might take time.

Open terminal and run these commands:
1.
Code:
sudo apk add flatpak

2.
Code:
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
3.
Code:
flatpak install flathub org.libreoffice.LibreOffice


Enjoy from suffering because Libreoffice is slow and doesn't work on a small screen xD.
(It will work and you can use it and if you have external display it is okay)

"Native" libreoffice from apk repos will work also but it does not show menus so you can't really do anything with it
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#37
@ alaraajavamma

Thank you for your detailed answer, really helpful. PinePhone developer Martijn Braam shows us LibreOffice demos on the PinePhone:

https://youtu.be/1NIWh2cX3nQ

And Jacob Crume, student in New Zealand who loves firing up virtual machines and trying out new distros:

https://news.itsfoss.com/author/jacob/

writes a user report in which he shares that he used a Linux based PinePhone for a year, and edited often files with LibreOffice on his PinePhone:

https://news.itsfoss.com/pinephone-review/

On the contrast, my user experience with LibreOffice on the PinePhone as a Linux beginner: It took me almost a month to install LibreOffice, working everyday a little bit on it, when I tried to install it last year. It where 36 posts in the Pine64 forum together with posts of other users and supporters. After I managed to install LibreOffice, I found that the menus are buggy, and you suggested to use the Flatpak version of LibreOffice. That is where I gave up last year.

I installed now Abiword and Gnomeric following your suggestion. I will try also later on to install LibreOffice according to your instruction, thanks for the info. LibreOffice, Abiword and Gnumeric can  be installed from Flathub:

https://flathub.org/home

Flathub is something interesting for Linux beginners, I failed to install it from there to this date, but thanks for the info, I will try later to install LibreOffice according to your instruction.
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#38
Working with LO Fresh 7.5 on a PP Beta/Manjaro Phosh, I found the screen size to inhibit much of the tinkering in Options, Customization, etc--the menus were impossible to see, regardless of rotation and font size.

My workaround was to install the same LO on a laptop, tinker to my heart' content, then copy over its /.config/libreoffice to the same place on the PP (perhaps renaming the original directory for safe keeping).

Even though the directory is generated in x86 on the laptop, it still works in PP/ARM.
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#39
Interesting idea, jakfish. For all those who are not nerds: next to Marlboro red, Unicorn black EEG and libreoffice flatpak version, there is another brand called libroffice fresh:

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any...-fresh-lo/

Tinker to your heart's content is great jakfish. Abiword and Gnumeric is eventually also worth to tinker and the apps are simpler than LibreOffice. But these apps have hardly been developed in the last 10 years, but it might worth to have a look at if these apps are interesting for Linux phones.

I found also that LibreOffice fresh is newer, with slightly different features, still is a bit more "mature" and is therefore recommended for use in companies, where stability is more important than new features:

https://forum.manjaro.org/t/libre-office...sh/52309/4

And don t forget LibreOffice STILL which is also available, but still I love it as simple as possible.
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#40
I keep trying to fall in love with Abiword but its document conversions, while numerous, just aren't as MS-accurate as LO.

But I've read all the difficulty that LO has put you through, so I'm glad you found proper alternatives.
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