LibreOffice 3.6 from PPA problems

Background of the Problem

This happened in my Kubuntu/Ubuntu 12.04 Precise. Up until a few weeks ago, my copy of LibreOffice version 3.6 from the PPA was working great. [It was faster, more stable, more bug fixes and even some new much needed features.]

But then suddenly it just stopped working. I still don't know why this happened exactly, though I have finally been able to track the cause to the probable package that triggered the whole meltdown.

When I tried running LibreOffice through the apps menu, nothing happened. So I ran the command 'libreoffice' from console, and got the error message:

/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash: not found

I wasn't sure what this problem was. I thought maybe some dependency had gone bad.

Unsuccessful Things I Tried

(1) I found I did not have a Java JRE installed, so I installed default-jre. But this didn't help.

(2) Try to reinstall LibreOffice, but APT tells me it cannot reinstall the libreoffice package back of broken packages. So manually remove extra libreoffice components.

apt-get remove --purge libreoffice-core libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress libreoffice-draw libreoffice-math libreoffice-base

First try ininstalling LibreOffice, but cannot. APT eventually tells me:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  libreoffice : Depends: libreoffice-core (= 1:3.5.4-0ubuntu1.1) but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libreoffice-writer but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libreoffice-calc but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libreoffice-impress but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libreoffice-draw but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libreoffice-math but it is not going to be installed
    Depends: libreoffice-base but it is not going to be installed
    Recommends: libreoffice-gnome but it is not going to be installed or
    libreoffice-kde but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

(3) I had been using this PPA: http://ppa.launchpad.net/libreoffice/ppa/ubuntu/

Tried using the program ppa-purge; even let it remove 100 separate packages at one point in order to "undo" the integration from this PPA that was probably causing problems on my system. But it did nothing to fix the problem!

(4) Tried manually editing the file /var/lib/dpkg/status, to check for a false positive on the program but nothing weird was installed or remaining! [Though I could not find anywhere it

Successful Fix (Part 1)

Here is what I did that finally fixed the dependency problem. While manually trying to install libreoffice-core, I noticed the error message said:

libreoffice-core : Depends: libexttextcat0 (>= 2.2-8) but it is not going to be installed

I checked out libexttextcat0 and it said:

libexttextcat0 : Depends: libexttextcat-data (= 3.2.0-1ubuntu1) but 3.3.1-2~precise1 is to be installed

Finally I used 'apt-cache policy' to look at libexttextcat-data and it said:

libexttextcat-data:
  Installed: 3.3.1-2~precise1
  Candidate: 3.3.1-2~precise1
  Version table:
 *** 3.3.1-2~precise1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.2.0-1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

This library had installed a later version (3.3.1-2) from somewhere that was no longer in my apt-repositories and apt couldn't figure this out (as being a serious problem for fixing via downgrade).

So I removed both libexttextcat-data and libexttextcat0 and then tried to install LibreOffice. Suddenly everything was ready to work again! But then came part 1.5.

Successful Fix (Part 1.5) The System is Unclean

At this point, I tried installing version LibreOffice 3.6 again from the PPA. This actually worked and installed just fine and it ran just fine. However I was a little worried about leftover crud from the prior botched installs.

After successfully installing LibreOffice 3.6, I purge uninstalled it and all its associated programs. Then I ran a check on the system, and sure enough found a bunch of left-over crud that hadn't been removed.

Successful Fix (Part 2)

So now I was left with a lot of crud left over from the previous botched installation of LibreOffice 3.6 which would simply not be uninstalled because the system (APT/DPKG) thought it wasn't installed.

This was going to require manual clean up, but thankfully it's not a very difficult task in Linux. I had to manually run a search-and-delete every single copy of anything related to LibreOffice on my system. After every trace of libreoffice named files were gone from my system, I was ready to install libreoffice for the final time.

However now if I tried to installed LibreOffice 3.6 from the PPA, the package maintainer (APT) behaved strangely. It acted like it installed the programs but actually did NOT install them. Nothing happened. So I used the command:

ppa-purge ppa:libreoffice/ppa

And removed the LibreOffice 3.6 PPA version and repository, and downgraded the program to version 3.5, installing from the official Ubuntu repositories and everything worked.

Word to the Wise: If you are installing a package and it asked you about installing a Configuration file, and you need to choose to keep your old file or install the Package-Maintainer's version, ALWAYS install the package maintainer's version, unless you have a really good reason not to.

Pidgin 2.10.6 libc-2.15.so Segfault Workaround

Pidgin Segfault Workaround

Today when I turned on my computer, Pidgin would not start. I normally prefer writing a more complete blog post, and I wish I had more to tell viewers but all I know is a (complex?) workaround that worked for me.

Pidgin won’t start. So I run it through command line. Get the message “Segfault”. Run it with the --debug switch. Get more info, but nothing conclusive. Check logs, find kernel describing a library problem with libc.

[   57.444660] pidgin[2211]: segfault at 0 ip 00007fc78073966a sp 00007fffee194710 error 4 in libc-2.15.so[7fc7806af000+1b3000]

Okay, that's bad but my system updated libc a week ago. Why the problem now? Try for a while but can't discover exact cause of problem.

My solution? Compile Pidgin myself, to see if that will fix the problem. Short answer: Yes, that fixed the problem.

I enabled software-sources in my apt-repository list, ran apt-get build-dep pidgin, manually download the pidgin source and compiled that sucker. Works fine, and I could remove all the extra packages installed by the apt-get build-dep move, with the exception of libfarstream, which is how Pidgin does it's sound.

Pidgin sound without gstreamers

Modern versions the instant messenger client Pidgin use gstreamers for their sound management. Sometimes you need to operate without gstreamers present on your system. But you still want sound though.

Here's a quick solution I've used in years passed. Go to Preferences -> Sounds -> Select "Method" and choose "Command". This will enable the input area with the label "Sou/nd command (%s for filename)". Into this box put this command:

aplay %s

That passes the sound from Pidgin to ALSA, which is supported on all modern Linux distributions and is also supported with backwards compatibility by PulseAudio.

Enable Auto Load with Firefox AutoPager

Hello. If you are using Firefox's add-on "AutoPager" you may have been annoyed in the past that it is inconveniently difficult to enable "Always autopage" on every sight you visit. (Essentially, you want to only use a blacklist of blocked autopage sites, and assume everything else is good.)

In the past, I don't even know how I set this. It may have been a menu or button option which has since been removed, but now for the latest Autopager, it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to enable all pages to automatically autopage.

Here is how I finally got this to work:

In Firefox, open a new tab and go to the address: "about:config" with no quotes and no http or anything. Just those words.

In the search area, type the words: extensions.autopager.noprompt

Set the value to 'True' and close. That should be all you need.

BTNX for Ubuntu 12.04 Precise

I thought that the wonderful mouse button configuration programs, btnx and btnx-config, were both available in the Ubuntu 12.04 repositories. Well, apparently they aren't? [But they were for a time, and I don't know why they were removed.]

UPDATE: For those running 12.10, I have posted a slightly dirty but workable solution here. Hopefully someone will take my patches and make a PPA of btnx. I'm looking it myself but it feels like a lot of work.

btnx is the best mouse-button configuration program I have found, bar-non, in any operating system so far. (I've tried others but they are either too complicated OR don't do the simple things I wanted.)

To install btnx in Ubuntu 12.04 (assuming Ubuntu doesn't fix this glaring error themselves), just download the appropriate version for yourself:

• 32 bit: main program / gui
• 64 bit: main program / gui

Look under the "Downloadable files" section. Don't grab the file for Oneiric, because that's the wrong version for 12.04 precise.

For example, you would want to download this sort of file (if you were running 64-bit): btnx_0.4.11-3ubuntu2_amd64.deb (19.3 KiB)

Make sure to get both the main program and the gui. After you have downloaded them, you need to install them. You may be able to install them using a graphical program, and then resolving the dependencies later. My approach was a little different and slightly more advanced but I knew exactly what was going on.

I opened a command console window, changed directories to where I had downloaded the btnx *.deb files, and ran the following command:

sudo dpkg -i btnx*

It proceeded to partially install the programs, but had a dependency error. I then ran this command to fix the dependency problem:

sudo apt-get install -f

In my case, this installed the dependency package 'menu'. Then btnx was successfully unpacked and installed. Now, btnx tried to auto-start its service after this but had an error. However when I manually ran the program manually through the applications menu, it opened just fine. I fed it my previously saved config files and everything worked.

Extract from DVDs/ISO in Ubuntu

Just a quick post. If you ever need to simply extract data from DVDs or ISO images in Ubuntu, I whole heartedly recommend the program K9Copy. Searching the Ubuntu Software Center for "DVD Rip" or "DVD Extract" unfortunately does not provide this awesome program in the search results.

I only found it because I knew of it previously. It is extremely useful for opening an pre-ripped DVD-ISO file and extracting the data streams from it. As usual, I'm sharing this because I found it useful to know. Hope it helps someone out there.

P.S. Does anyone know how to tag programs in the Ubuntu Software Center with key words? K9Copy should absolutely be listed when you search for DVD Ripping.

Linux Irks: Things in Linux that Irk You

An Open Question to Users

So this post is a bit different. This question goes out to all Linux users (casual, professional, full-time/part-time, whatever).

"What are your Linux irks? What are the things in Linux that irk you?" Just to clarify, this isn't a feature request thread. Not a "I wish feature X-Y-Z was in Linux." Mostly I am thinking of things like "I can live the situation; the workaround I have functions okay, but I wish they'd fix it or it was better." I'll start as an example (see below).

Can be big, small, significant or insignificant. This isn't a flame thread, so if you please, try to be polite and rant-free. (I know I rant sometimes. I try not to...)

Side Comment

I read the Phoronix news posts daily and semi-daily. There's a fair bit of graphics related Jargon to get used to and if you aren't a graphics enthusist, that website may not be for you. However they do cover much more than just graphics, though that seems to be their big passion.

I really love Linux, but I have to admit it's not perfect. There is a recent article about the state of much of Linux hardware support and honestly I think the poster did a good job of politely pointing out serious shortcomings while also presenting triumphs. Read it here if you are interested in getting a fairly realistic and well supported opinion on the state of Linux hardware support.

Mine

Not many things irk me about Linux (or my Linux experience), but:

1) EDIT -- A friend of mine kindly pointed out the solution to this problem a few weeks ago (on a day when I was particularly angry too, so it was very nice). The short version is: I needed to enable "USB Keyboard support and also USB mouse support" in my BIOS. So if you are having this problem, please poke around in your BIOS or google for the solution to your particular BIOS.

Legacy Post (SOLVED): One recently that continues to bite me is GRUB's USB-wireless keyboard support. My usb-wireless keyboard "Logitech DiNovo Edge" works great in Linux/KDE (after a simple one-time tweak for each Linux distribution update/install.) It works on boot-up in my BIOS, which is awesome. It works in Linux rescue disks in the basic consoles. It works in KDE/Gnome/Fluxbox/KMS/VirtualBox, you name it.

But when GRUB loads to ask me a question (sometimes after I install or remove kernels, or swap around harddrives), my usb-wireless keyboards STOPS WORKING. Rage.

Sigh... I've dealt with this problem for literal years now. I still keep a PS2 keyboard around to fix the problem. Though I should check if GRUB2 now supports just play non-wireless USB keyboards.

2) Missing out of the box multi-button mouse configuration. (I assert this must be a graphical configuration tool, since mice are fundamentally graphical.) I understand that not everyone will have a multi-button mouse, but I wish KDE, Gnome, or Debian/Ubuntu themselves made an officially supported project to handle these. I know it probably couldn't work for everything, but if someone started it as an officially supported project, people could build plugins for it and then it would be a widespread well supported project covering much of the FOSS and Linux world.

I use a Logitech multi-button mouse and I use BTNX to configure it. This works very very well, and I'm quite happy. However occasionally the BTNX package has been unavailable in versions of Ubuntu. One time it disappeared because of Kernel driver API changes, but several months later this was adjusted for. Another time, just recently with Ubuntu 12.04, it wasn't available for a month until a third-party library dependency issue could be resolved and BTNX could be made available for the latest Ubuntu version.

Afterward

I'm in a somewhat privileged position... (maybe?) I don't play video games so the lack of game support on Linux rarely impacts me.