[xubuntu-users] Newbie problems with OpenOffice and Xubuntu 8.04

[Jeffrey B. Layton]

Afternoon all,

I'm new to Xubuntu but I've been using Linux, for a long time :)
But unfortunately, I've got some newbie type questions :)

I'm trying to install OpenOffice 2.4.0 but I'm running into
some problems. I googled around a bit and it seems like the
recommended installation method is to use alien to convert
the Openoffice .tar.gz or the individual rpm's to .deb format.
I tried converting the whole .tar.gz with the following:

sudo dpkg -i <file>.deb

The installation seemed to go fine and it ended with the following:

Setting up ooo-2.4.0-linuxintel-install-wjre-en-us (1-2) ...

But I can't seem to find where it installed it :)


So my next step was to convert the individual .rpm files.

sudo alien --to-deb --scripts *.rpm

and I got the following error:

mkdir: cannot create directory 'openoffice.org-core04u-2.4.0': File exists
unable to mkdir opensoffice.org-core04u-2.4.0:  at 
/usr/shareperl5/Alien/Package.pm line 257, <GETPERMS> line 1581

Any ideas on what I'm screwing up? (I know it's probably my
lack of knowledge but I can't seem to figure it out). Any suggestions
on how to install OpenOffice for Xubuntu?

TIA!

Jeff