[ale] Codeweaver cxoffice on Fedora X86_64 w/Opteron CPU

[Dow Hurst]

I just read this email off of the Codeweavers listserv and 
thought some on ALE might be interested.

BEGIN:

> Having just completed getting an Opteron system up and running for a
> database project, I figured I'd let your email rationalize playing
> around with cxoffice on the new system.  Here's a quick report of my
> installation experience.  No word yet on longer-term reliability.
> 
> (Sorry beforehand about the length.  I guess I'm feeling verbose
> tonight.)
> 
> The OS is the .96 "test" release of x86_64 Fedora Core.  This server is
> only set up for testing right now, and will eventually be either RHEL 3
> or SuSE 9.  (Probably RHEL, since the customer seems to like it.)  RHEL,
> SuSE, and even Gentoo were possibilities, but were too much trouble or
> expense for what is still just a testing environment.
> 
> First, a small disclaimer: we have Crossover Office running in
> production on numerous diverse machines, and are very happy with how it
> fills its role.  In this instance, I'm just testing, and so I don't
> expect production results.
> 
> I had a copy of 2.0.4 lying around, so I used it.  There may be a newer
> point release.  I didn't look.
> 
> I scp'd a copy of the installer to /tmp and performed a root install to
> /opt/cxoffice.  I usually use the Loki install, but I've had some minor
> menu troubles with it the last couple of times (Gnome menus and an
> Evolution-only install of Ximian/RedCarpet on RH 9; CXO menus would
> "hide" all my normal menus; I just put the regular menus back and built
> custom CXO launchers to fix it; I now kind of hate gconf) so I used the
> root install this time.
> 
> The installer ran, and completed fine.  It complained ("gtk-warning")
> that it couldn't find the library module "libbluecurve.so" in the module
> path, and then gave a bunch of errors that it couldn't change the Gnome
> menus because XML::DOM was missing.  Nothing showed up in the menus. 
> All of the files were installed properly though, at least as far as I
> could tell.
> 
> The next thing I tried was the automount/autorun for Office 2000.  On
> insertion, the cd automounted at /mnt/cdrom, but the autorun did not
> operate.  So then, as a user, I ran cxsetup from /opt/cxoffice/bin.  
> 
> Using cxsetup I was able to install (except for the Gnome menus) Office
> 2000 completely.  There were a few minor flaws in the process.
> 
> On the first run (cxsetup, install, select from list, go), the Office
> 2000 install installed DCOM95, then showed the dialog about "configuring
> windows installer", then hung, requiring the killing of all wine
> processes and a simulated reboot (cxreboot).  On the restart of cxsetup,
> DCOM95 showed up in the list of installed applications, but nothing
> else.
> 
> On the second run, the Office 2000 install proceeded normally, with the
> license key, "run all from my computer" tree, and etc., working fine. 
> It got all the way to the end, and then hung somewhere after all the
> files were copied, but before the simulated reboot and install
> completion.  Killed all wine processes, simulated reboot.  On cxsetup
> restart, the fonts from the install cd showed up now with DCOM95, but
> nothing else.
> 
> On the third run, everything completed perfectly.  I did have to
> re-enter the license key and all that.  This time, I noticed some
> trivial, weird problems with z-order on the dialogs during the install.
> 
> I then downloaded/installed the updates to IE and to O2K (SP1 and SR3),
> and tested everything.  It all works fine, as far as 30 minutes testing
> can tell.  The Gnome menu items never got created, but the desktop IE
> icon did.  Go figure.
> 
> As far as I can tell, Cxoffice works just fine in Fedora Core .96 for
> x86_64.  I attribute the menu problems to the OS's "test" status, and
> assume it will get fixed in the 1.0 release of Opteron FC.
> 
> Once again, I can't get over how cool I think this Crossover Office
> product is.  Great work, guys.
> 
> James Kelly
> Sfdatanet, LLC
> San Francisco, CA

END

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Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
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