mscion:

You probably downgraded your openoffice.org version from 3.1 in the Easy Debian image to the Lenny version, 2.4. There's not much we can do about that at the moment, since Debian pulled all the newer versions from their repositories. Your only other option for 3.1+ openoffice.org is to use an Ubuntu image instead.

Hm, it looks like you may only have to go down to openoffice.org 3.0 if you go through Debian Backports, but it is trickier. Maybe that's how you got it to work through Aptitude; maybe Aptitude knows how to handle Backports better.

What's the version of openoffice.org that you now have?

qole: Unfortunately it is 2.4. If you want to give me some pointers
on Debian Backports I can give it a try. I will also consider the Ubuntu image.
Of course there is always LaTEX as a fallback!

mscion: If I had known that Debian was going to pull openoffice.org from their repositories, I would have grabbed all of the packages and made my own little repo for this kind of thing.

Basically, to enable Backports, you have to follow the instructions in the link I gave above.

1. Enable the www.backports.org line in /etc/apt/sources.list (this may already be the case in the v3b image)
2. Use either apt-get or aptitude to install:
or
That should upgrade openoffice.org and the equation editor to 3.0

qole:

Well, I tried but it seams that lenny-backports downgrades to 2.4.
I even started from scratch and reinstalled easy debian. At that point
I have openoffice 3.0. (with equation editor disabled)
Next step I try

apt-get -t lenny-backports install openoffice.org-math

Still doesn't work. Has the same previous problem with the openoffice.org-core incompatibility so it was a no go.

I then try the aptitude version and it installs but with the down grade to 2.4.

When you tried this did you actually get the equation editor to work with version 3.0? That is, in openoffice writer, go to

insert->object->formula

Then a box will appear on the bottom of the screen to type in
formulas.


So if 2.4 is the best I can do for now on Debian, I will give
Ubuntu a try later today.

See, there's the heart of the problem. I haven't tried it. I don't need the equation editor, or I would have installed it as part of the default Easy Debian.

The best I can do is give you general advice, since I have no experience here...

I hope the Debian folks can figure out the problems and bring OpenOffice 3.x back soon.

EDIT: have you tried explicitly upgrading openoffice.org-core using the -t lenny-backports method?

I am wondering where I can find the log files of Easy Debian.

I have looked in...

/var/log/message

...but in the above location I only see log entries up to January 19th, which is long before I installed Easy Debian. I realize the space limitations of this environment, but is there any log file I can tail to see events on the Easy Debian image?

Thank you in advance.

mail_e36:

The log files for apps installed into the Easy Debian image will be inside the image itself. The Maemo /var/log directory is not mounted over the Debian one. So in Maemo, you will have to look in /.debian/var/log, and from within the chroot, it should be in /var/log.

I can see recent logs in that directory in my image.

In my image (v3b) it ends with
I guess that syslogd was deinstalled at that time. Which is fine with me as I wouldn't like to have /var/log filling up continuously. There is of course also "dmesg" for looking at kernel messages.

qole:

I tried upgrading the openoffice.org-core using lennybackports but I get a message saying it is already at the latest version...
I guess, for now, it is probably best to wait for the Debian folks
to fix things and stick with using the 2.4 version. As it turns out, my work pc has 2.3 because I am required to use CENTOS!

As an exercise, I'd like to try to get ubuntu version working,
(do you know if the equation editor will work on that?)
What is the best way to install the image file you gave the link to?

Thanks again for your help.

To install the Ubuntu image:

Open a terminal.
Wait a while until it finishes that.
Wait a while until it finishes that.

(Install leafpad in Maemo if you haven't already)
change the IMGFILE line to read:
(you might need to remove a # from one of the existing example lines and use that line.)