Libreoffice borked

AlucardNoir

I started moving back to Linux about 8 months ago. Solus was the distro I chose, go figure. Now, I had been noticing some problems with Libreoffice on Solus but nothing major, not until today. (mainly because I haven't done much writing on Solus) My dad uses one of my sister's old Windows laptops and since my sister moved to another city it fell to me to keep my dads old machine up to date. Yesterday when I visited him I convinced him to try Linux. (because I'm a lazy sod and getting to update all the software from the repo in 15 minutes is preferable to what I have to do on windows) I wanted to give him one of my old laptops to try it out; but before that I decided to try to get as close to his desktop as I could.

He has the Libreoffice icon on his desktop, as well as the files he's writing and the browser he uses. Putting Firefox and the Trash on the desktop was easy. Installing the privacy orientated plugins for Firefox, very easy - mainly because I already had them install for my personal use. Trying to put Libreoffice on the desktop... not so easy.

Turns out that if I try and drag the Libreoffice icon, or Writer, or Calc, or anything else Libreoffice related, the resulting libreoffice.desktop file isn't mine, it's root. If I try and open libreoffice, turns out there is no icon showing in the icon task list, only in the task list view if I have that active in Budgie. And there are a few more problems with libreoffice that have been mentioned in another thread. Uninstalling and reinstalling all components doesn't help - mainly because the Solus Software Center seems to install Libreoffice components on an elevated privilege level then most other programs. The Budgie and Gnome settings, g-edit and VS code, the Terminal, non seem to cause any problems, Libreoffice on the other hand? how dare I mere mortal try and put a desktop shortcut of it on my desktop? Wanting to see it in the icon task view? who do I think I am? Stallman? No sir, Libreoffice is for the super user and only for the super user. I should be thankful I am allowed to use it as much as I can.

But all jokes aside, the LO installs in the Solus SC are seriously messed up.

Justin

LO installs the same as any other application. I am guessing it's something to do with the .desktop files.

AlucardNoir

Justin I've tried the other programs that were available in the budgie start menu and the only programs that produce .desktop files that belong to root and not me are the Libreoffice ones. LO apps are also the only ones that don't appear in the icon task view. No LO icon, with or without a dot beneath it, no Writer icon, no Calc icon etc.

dbarron

So just make a shell script that calls LibreOffice, place it on/in desktop, and make it executable. In Linux there are always at least 4 or 5 ways to accomplish something. If one doesn't work, try another.

AlucardNoir

dbarron Wile technically true, that defeat the purpose of dragging and dropping something to the desktop. There's a problem with LO on Solus and it needs to be solved, not circumvented.

stalebrim

AlucardNoir Feel free to figure out what's wrong with it and send a PR 😀

dbarron

I assumed you wanted a solution not a months long triage. My mistake.

TraceyC

This appears to be at least partly caused by an upstream bug with LibreOffice. I was able to duplicate the ownership problem on KDE Neon (based on Ubuntu). It is not specific to Solus.

However, when I launch, say, Writer, I do see it in the task manager. That's a difference that can be fixed in the Budgie project.

If you'd like to see these two bugs fixed, there are two parts

For the root ownership of the desktop shortcut:
Finding an existing bug (or filing one) with the LibreOffice project. I did a bit of searching but didnt' find anything related. You may have better luck.
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/buglist.cgi
For the problem with the icon not being in the Budgie task manager:
Working with the Solus folks to help them fix the problem with the application not showing up in the task manager. You've already taken the first step by posting here, and getting information. The next step is opening a bug on the Budgie bug tracker here:
https://github.com/solus-project/budgie-desktop/issues

Good luck 🙂

Justin

TraceyC Thank you for that investigatory work. The fact that this has been confirmed as an issue on another OS and desktop means it is not Solus specific, @AlucardNoir please report upstream to LibreOffice.

AlucardNoir

Justin @TraceyC Done. Also I can't help but notice that the icon task list seems to somewhat work after today's update. Though if any of LO's components are opened from the LO icon and not their respective icons, the icon in the icon task list seems to stay that of LO and doesn't change to that of Writer/Calc/Draw etc.

@dbaron I'm not comfortable with bash and my dad is... well he can barely use the Windows GUI. I'm trying to get him to move to Linux because I'm lazy and don't want to waste time keeping his PC up to date and, more importantly, secure. Having to brush up on my lacking bash skills to write a script just so I can circumvent a problem that shouldn't be there sounds like more work then it's will save - in the short term. Did I mention I'm lazy?

dbarron

#!/bin/bash
libreoffice

Not all that difficult is it ? Then you can associate any icon you like with it, I think.

JoshStrobl

The issue with LibreOffice desktop files being owned as root is the result of LibreOffice actually having a build system which installs the desktop files into the completely incorrect location, which is /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/xdg, then symlinking to /usr/share/applications/. As a result, the desktop file on the desktop is a symlink to that xdg directory, which is owned by root. The correct procedures would be:

File a bug upstream to have the LO desktop files be installed into the correct directory instead of symlinking
Updating our package until upstream fixes it to move the contents and potentially reverse the direction of the symlink in the event LO relies on those desktop files being in that xdg directory.

Either way, it isn't actually an issue with Budgie, nor an issue with Nautilus (which provides the desktop icons view). It is solely an issue with LibreOffice, just as how Budgie has to work around LibreOffice issues like its splash screen, it modifying its window ID, etc.

AlucardNoir

JoshStrobl Thank you for the reply. Since you seem to know exactly what the problem is do you think you could comment here: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124853 to actually let them know what the problem is. Also, since the problem seems to be as to were the program is installed... is there actually any change they will change that? I can't imagine this is that new of a problem.

SOLUSfiddler

JoshStrobl
Thanks for clarifying!
It relaxes me to a great extent as I am the one who posted the LO bug about open LO windows disappearing ("LibreOffice/Budgie panel bug") and now I have the feeling those LO problems might be checked and solved at some point!

SOLUSfiddler

kyrios

JoshStrobl Updating our package until upstream fixes it to move the contents and potentially reverse the direction of the symlink in the event LO relies on those desktop files being in that xdg directory.

I'll do this next time I update LO.

Fatih19

You can have a great painting software, a feature packed image and vector manipulation software, and Natron. But not an office suite tho, that exceeds the power of the open source community. /s
Can you drag the libreoffice to a panel or dock instead as a temporary solution?

JoshStrobl

Fatih19 Can you drag the libreoffice to a panel or dock instead as a temporary solution?

My suggestion would be to launch the respective LibreOffice app, e.g. Writer, and pin it to the panel. Is it ideal? No. But it isn't realistic for us as a downstream to fix literally everything that's an issue in third-party software.

AlucardNoir

Fatih19 Now yes, yesterday NO. Yesterday, before the latest sync, the icons were missing from the icon task view that's used to both imitate the new win start menu and for Budgies inbuilt dock functionality.

@JoshStrobl This is deviating from the Lo discussion but, do you think a right click menu might ever become available in the budgie menu? something that might give us the ability to pin icons to the panel without having to open the program first? And yes, I know this will just make Budgie just a little bit more like windows... but you are right after all, it shouldn't be up to you to fix upstream mistakes... Also, technically, if you are correct, @Justin was wrong, LO does not install the same as any other application.

Justin

AlucardNoir We install it correctly. So no, I'm not incorrect. LibreOffice doesn't adhere to the standard location for .desktop files.

Staudey

See my answers here
As others have already mentioned it's a bug with how LibreOffice handles its desktop files. If you want to have them on the desktop, as a workaround just copy them from /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/xdg