ANNOUNCING: OpenOffice.org 643C for PPC Linux

[Kevin B. Hendricks]

Announcing: OpenOffice.org 643C for PPC Linux

What is it?
--------------
OpenOffice.org provides a free (source LGPL and no $) almost drop-in 
replacement for Microsoft Office and is available for Solaris (Sparc and 
x86), Linux (x86 and PPC), WIN (NT, 200, XP, 98, 95, etc), and coming real 
soon now (RSN) for FreeBSD, NetBSD, Irix, and Mac OSX.  It provides almost 
transparent file access to Microsoft Office files.  

Build 643C is part of our development series and has many new features 
over OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 including direct creation of PDF files from 
Writer files.

Please see http://www.openoffice.org for more info and additional download 
sites for major platforms.  PPC Linux specific download sites are provided 
below.


What's New in This Release?
------------------------------
- built using gcc-3.2.1 final
- man new features (the development branch)
- bug fixes
- create PDF files direct from Writer


For a more complete listing of features and changes please see the
Release Notes:

    http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/643c/release_notes_643c.html

It was built and tested on a YDL 2.3 distribution with an updated toolchain 
(later binutils, glibc, and gcc).

This version *should* work on stock Debian, SuSE 7.3, YDL, 2.2, YDL 2.3, 
and almost any other PPC Linux distribution using at least glibc 2.2.1.

Please Note:  Debian users may want to use the official Debian builds which 
include better desktop integration for Debian users and have been built 
and tested on Debian systems (although this version will work too)


DISCLAIMER
--------------
This is the usual disclaimer.   OOo 643C is part of the development
release series and may not be as stable as OOo 1.0.1 was. So please 
don't complain if you lose everything! 

This binary is provided "as-is" with no warranty of any kind as a 
service to people who do not want to build their own version.

If interested, you can build your own binary direct from source.
(see below).

Please check out http://www.openoffice.org for more info on the 
OpenOffice.org project
 

What's Available (English Only)?
----------------------------------
- OOo_643C_LinuxPPC_installer.tar.gz
       md5sum: 72a7a1b72e2919b09cf892ddacf5baa1
      75897480 bytes

- OpenOffice_README.ppclinux

inside the installer is a complete installation/setup
guide in pdf format.


Where can I download it?
---------------------------
ftp://ftp.yellowdoglinux.com/pub/yellowdog/software/openoffice/
ftp://ftp.stardiv.de/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/linuxppc/


And it is available from up-to-date YellowDog Linux Mirrors:
     http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/resources/ftp_mirrors.shtml

Hopefully it will appear on penguinppc.org sites soon.


Building your own from Source
----------------------------------
Building your own OOo binary is not for the faint hearted and takes at 
least 2 gig of free disk space and updated tools.  
The CVS tag to use is:  OO643C

export CVSROOT=:pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.openoffice.org:/cvs
cvs login  (use anoncvs as the password)
cvs co -r OO643C OpenOffice

For more info on getting the source, see:
     http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/get_source.html


If you are interested in building your own version direct from source, 
please contact me and I will try to provide you with the latest mozilla 
addressbook zip files and some build instructions.  The recommended
compiler for OOo 643C is gcc 3.2.1.

Thanks,

Kevin B. Hendricks
kevin.hendricks@sympatico.ca