Struggle to install LibreOffice on the PinePhone

[alaraajavamma]

I am new to Linux, but I am experienced in using Android phones with Office applications with keyboard and mouse, and I use such a setup for many years.

I now installed LibreOffice with the aid of the Pine64 community on a PinePhone with PostmarketOS. Thanks for your support.

I made first tests with LibreOffice on a PinePhone with PostmarketOS. I had issues, especially how to use it with a keyboard and a mouse.

I wrote a list of issues which I experienced, and some proposuals, who they could be resolved on my personal website:

https://petergamma.org/libreoffice-on-a-...os-issues/

Atleast few months ago Libreoffice worked better with Flatpak version (vs. the apk version). If I remember correctly there were some issues with Menus when using apk version.

Personally I think Libreoffice is bit too "heavy" app for Pinephone so I am using Abiword and Gnumeric.

[Peter Gamma]

Thanks for sharing your experience, alaraajavamma, very welcome. Testimonies about the PinePhone and LibreOffice are rare, and show manly the startup of LibreOffice, therefore I am not sure.

I found that Jacob Crume, a robotics student in New Zealand used a PinePhone daily for a year. Jacob wrote, that he often found himself using the PinePhone with an external monitor using it’s included dock, and that we was surprised at how capable the PinePhone is as a laptop, and that he often found myself editing documents in LibreOffice:

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

That is good news. The issues I have may also be caused by the fact that I am new to Linux and Jacob is a Linux professional. On the other hand, was there an update of LibreOffice which prevented the installation on the PinePhone recently? I was struggeling for three weeks with it, until the installation «just worked».

[alaraajavamma]

Libreoffice is perfect "proof of concept app" for Pinephone.
Everything works (kind of) but it is not usable on phone screen and when using external display it is quite laggish.
You can say it is daily driver ready but you don't want to daily drive it

[Peter Gamma]

On Youtube, there are countless reviews about the PinePhone, from how to use it as a privacy phone to how to install Nextcloud and Minecraft Server on it. But there are hardly any reviews about how to use Office applications on the PinePhone, although it is often mentioned that the phone can run desktop applications.

When I start up LibreOffice, a box appears which asks to recover files or not. It is not possible to control this box, neither by the touch screen, nor the PinePhone keyboard, nor an external mouse or keyboard, and LibreOffice stucks here and is not usuable. I saw that it is possible to stop LibreOffice asking this question, but this needs some file editing.

Did you also experience this problem, and could you solve it?

[alaraajavamma]

I can't remember that problem - if it was issue back then I did not "understand" it as a problem because I only used Libreoffice with external display.

Is this happening "It is not possible to control this box" because window scales too big?
If so I can suggest you this (paste to terminal and press enter):
gsettings set sm.puri.phoc scale-to-fit true

[Peter Gamma]

No, it is not like that. I remember it worked once with the touch display to start LibreOffice, when the control box appeared. Then, I made several attempts. I can see the control box on the phone screen and on the HDMI screen. But whatever I tried, the control box did not disappear, and I could not start LibreOffice.

[alaraajavamma]

Can you try this:
libreoffice --norestore

If that works you can add it to .desktop files

[Peter Gamma]

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately, I have put my PinePhone with all the accessoires already in a box and did it in the screed. I am currently on the way to install a Nextcloud server on a local Rasperri device for data interchange between my Android phone an my Windows PC. This is for me personally easier than to debug LibreOffice on the PinePhone. I was hoping to replace my Android phone with the Pinephone, but I failed. It takes too much time. I have currently now time left for debugging LibreOffic on the PinePhone. But as soon as I have some spare time to do this, I will try it once more and take the PinePhone from the screed again. But I guess this will be next year at the earliest.

[Peter Gamma]

Everything works (kind of) but it is not usable on phone screen and when using external display it is quite laggish.

I had a closer look once more at three demo videos about LibreOffice:

https://petergamma.org/demonstrations-of...pinephone/

and it fits with what I experienced with my tests. LibreOffice Writes is often blocked by control boxes, and it is not possible to make an input. It seems not only on start-up, especially LibreOffice writer. It is better with LibreOffice calc, where the scrool bar works, and it is also touchable.

You said «Everything works (kind of)». Did you not have these kind of issues? And on what disto did you install LibreOffice?

[alaraajavamma]

Everything works (kind of) but it is not usable on phone screen and when using external display it is quite laggish.

I had a closer look once more at three demo videos about LibreOffice:

https://petergamma.org/demonstrations-of...pinephone/

and it fits with what I experienced with my tests. LibreOffice Writes is often blocked by control boxes, and it is not possible to make an input. It seems not only on start-up, especially LibreOffice writer. It is better with LibreOffice calc, where the scrool bar works, and it is also touchable.

You said «Everything works (kind of)». Did you not have these kind of issues? And on what disto did you install LibreOffice?

PostmarketOS and Phosh - stable release some months ago.
The official repo (apk) libreoffice did not work - there was issues with menus so I decided to try Flatpak version.
With Flatpak version everything worked but it was just so damn laggish so I decided to choose abiword and gnumeric.