Install LibreOffice on Ubuntu and Debian-based Distros

Want to install the new LibreOffice on Ubuntu or a Debian-based distribution? Although the Document Foundation doesn’t yet offer .deb binaries for these distros, you can use the provided .rpm packages to install LibreOffice on a machine running Ubuntu or Debian. To do this, you need to convert .rpm packages to .deb using the alien tool. To install alien on Ubuntu, run the sudo apt-get install alien command. Grab then the latest release of LibreOffice from the project’s Web site, unpack the downloaded .tar.gz archive, rename the resulting directory to libreoffice, and move it into your home directory. Launch the terminal, and switch to the RPMS directory and use alien to convert all .rpm packages in the directory:

cd libreoffice/RPMS/

sudo alien -k *.rpm

Install then the resulting .deb packages using the following command:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

This installs the productivity suite, but it doesn’t provide any desktop integration. Fortunately, this problem is easy to fix. Switch to the desktop-integration directory and convert the libreoffice3.3-freedesktop-menus-3.3-9526.noarch.rpm package:

cd desktop-integration/

alien -k libreoffice3.3-freedesktop-menus-3.3-9526.noarch.rpm

Install then the converted package using the sudo dpkg -i libreoffice3.3-freedesktop-menus_3.3-9526_all.deb command. This adds LibreOffice menu entries to the Applications | Office menu and integrates LibreOffice with your desktop.

By Dmitri Popov

24 thoughts on “Install LibreOffice on Ubuntu and Debian-based Distros”

Hector Macias Ayala September 28, 2010 at 2:46 pm

here are the debs:

http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/

Timothy September 29, 2010 at 2:38 am

Now what remains is for Libreoffice to be added to a repository or PPA.

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Eric Mesa September 30, 2010 at 12:45 pm

Hahahahah! For once rpms win! I always see everyone on the internet slogging off rpm and, for once, they are the format of choice!

Ulrik Mikaelsson September 30, 2010 at 1:57 pm

Wait a second. Does LibreOffice really do ANYTHING better than OpenOffice, yet?

Seems a bit fanatic to run out and get the new “LibreOffice”, when it’s probably mostly yet a grep/sed the name over the sourcecode, and change some graphics and icons?

Good way to get into trouble.

Frank Bernhardt September 30, 2010 at 4:16 pm

@ulrik
LibreOffice is tagged as beta and on the website they stress that it should not be used in a production environment. And you are correct when you state “Good way to get into trouble.”
It’s just for testing.

Saaz Rai September 30, 2010 at 10:58 pm

I’ve already installed Libre from the debs available at http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/
Both 32 and 64 bits are available.
The features seems very similar to OOo 3.3 beta but with a new logo, promises and future…

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Rev Eggplant October 1, 2010 at 6:31 am

This actually is working rather well for the document creation/editing that I need to do. I’m using it just fine.

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Barista Uno October 4, 2010 at 10:31 pm

It will take LibreOffice some doing to compete with OpenOffice. It will have to offer something new, something better. I will hold off switching to LibreOffice until I see that happening.

Best of luck to the LibreOffice folks.

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Joshua D. Burns October 26, 2010 at 9:43 am

On the contrary, I don’t think it will take much at all to compete with OpenOffice.org.

The fact of the matter is people like free source, and Oracle has ruined that. They haven’t done a thing with their newly acquired office suite.

In addition there are many patches which have been contributed which neither Sun nor Oracle has added into the main repo, while LibreOffice.org has. So off the bat they’re competing.

And let’s not also forget the fact that many of the major contributors to OpenOffice.org have moved from OOo to LibreOffice. It’s looking like a shutdown effect for Oracle’s OOo- Ubuntu has already pledged support for LibreOffice over OOo.

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nagin chand December 12, 2010 at 12:35 am

Thanks for clear instructions to install libreoffice on ubuntu/debian.

Slowly libreoffice may replace openoffice for fear of oracle freezing the freedom of “open”.

More people need to join “the document foundation” for contributing and improving further this office suit.

Leslie Huszar December 28, 2010 at 12:14 am

I get error :incorrect format:unknown tag

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Tyler March 4, 2011 at 9:37 am

The download from the LibreOffice is now the deb binaries, and some of the file names have been changed, but the general process is still the same, minus needing to install alien, of course.