6.0-RELEASE as an office desktop?

[Frank Laszlo]

James B. Van Bokkelen wrote:
> I am using a Dell D610 laptop as a dual-purpose machine.  The current
> release of the product I'm working on uses FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE, and
> I am building kernels and applications using it.  With this machine,
> I am trying to get away from using WinXP for mail and office documents.
>
> I installed the distributed Gnome 2-2.10.2 and generally like it.
> Because Gnome's mail tools don't do IMAP with local mail storage for
> off-line use, I installed the thunderbird-1.0.6 package. It is usable,
> but has problems fixed in 1.0.7 or 1.5.  I attempted to build 1.5 from
> ports, and while the result worked, shared library changes apparently
> broke Gnome, so I reinstalled 6.0-RELEASE and went back to 1.0.6.
> Finally, it appears that no Open Office package is available for
> 6.0-RELEASE (1.0.3_6 wants much older ORBit and glib).  I started to
> build OO from ports, but the makefile warned me it needed 9GB free,
> which would require another cycle of re-installation to obtain.
>
> So, it appears that I'm stalled.  Building from ports introduces
> library skew issues which compromise the machine as a development
> environment.  But obtaining Open Office for 6.0-RELEASE appears to
> raise the bar beyond what I can justify to get shut of Windows.
>
> I know the volunteer nature of this - the first software I released
> under a "copyleft" was for DECUS in the early 1980s.  But I would like
> to suggest that future RELEASE distributions have a goal that a usable
> office desktop environment be obtainable in a straightforward way,
> either from the distribution CDs, or via the net using 'pkg_add -r'.
> The 6.0-RELEASE Gnome comes close, but the lack of a canned Open Office
> should, IMO, be remedied. 
>
> And in the mean time, if anyone wanted to supply me a clue or two, or
> point me at a package built for 6.0-RELEASE for either Open Office
> 2.x or Thunderbird 1.5, I would be quite pleased.
>
> James Van Bokkelen
> Sandstorm Enterprises Inc.
>
>
OOO cant be packaged on the CD due to license restrictions. Thunderbird
1.5 was released after 6.0, thus did not make it on the ISO's. As far as
library "skewing" I suggest you look into using "sysutils/portupgrade"
to fix issues like this. Learning how to properly maintain software on
freebsd is vital to keeping the system happy, I'll admit the learning
curve is a bit to overcome, but its nothing a bit of practice wont fit.

Cheers,
    Frank