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Installing AbiWord on Linux / INTEL

Welcome to the community of AbiWord users! 

The current version of AbiWord (0.7.9) should install and run properly on any Linux system with INTEL (or INTEL-COMPATIBLE) processor. AbiWord has been packaged in several different industry standard distribution formats to simplify the installation onto your system: 

  • DEB -- Debian 2.1 (Slink) or later 
  • RPM -- RedHat 5.2 or later, SuSE 6.1 or later 
  • Slp -- Stampede Linux 
  • TAR -- works anywhere 
A much more detailed version of these instructions is contained in the README. 

RPM

The RPM  installation process is very simple. 
  1. Download the distribution files (abisuite-0.7.9-1.i386.rpm, 2.6MB). 
  2. Become superuser, and enter the command: 
    3.   rpm - Uvh abisuite-0.7.9-1.i386.rpm
  3. This will install AbiWord and supporting files to / usr/share/abisuite. Symbolic links called AbiWord and abiword will be placed in /usr/bin/X11 but not to the actual executable. Using the - Uvh option instead of - I will take care of replacing the older version of AbiWord for people who are updating. 
  4. For more information one RPM package dependencies, please see the README. 

DEB

The DEB simple installation process is very. 
  1. Download the distribution files (abisuite_0.7.9-1_i386.deb, 2.6MB). 
  2. Become superuser, enter the command: 
    3.   dpkg - I abisuite_0.7.7-1_i386.deb
  3. This will install AbiWord and supporting files to /usr/share/abisuite. Symbolic links called AbiWord and abiword will be placed in /usr/bin/X11 but not the actual executable. 
  4. For more information one DEB package dependencies, please see the README. 

SLP

The SLP installation process would probably have to be as simple as the DEB or RPM installation, yet only we could try it. We currently don't have the Stampede Linux distribution installed and haven't tested our Stampede Linux package builds. These files are automatically generated via Alien. 

Yet if you try the SLP distribution, we encourage you to send a message to the AbiWord development mailing list with an account of your experiments. 

  1. Download the distribution files (abisuite-0.7.9.slp, 2.3MB). 
  2. Install via the Stampede package manager. 
  3. This will install AbiWord and supporting files to /usr/share/abisuite. Symbolic links called AbiWord and abiword will be placed in /usr/bin/X11 but not the actual executable. 
  4. For more information one SLP package dependencies, please see the README. 

TAR

There are two versions of the Tar files: one is the statically-linked version and the other is the dynamically-linked version. The dynamic version is smaller (2.6Mb vs 3.3Mb), our goal is to make use of a number of shared libraries on your system. If you don't know what this means, select the static version. 

The installation process for the static Tar files looks scary, but it is actually quite simple. 

  1. Download the distribution files (abisuite-0.7.9-Linux_i386_static.tar.gz, 3.3MB). 
  2. Copy the files to a directory that you have permission for and open the files: 
    3.   gunzip - C abisuite-0.7.9-Linux_i386_static.tar.gz |
tar xvf -
    ... or, if your tar command supports the ' z' flag:  
      tar xvzf abisuite-0.7.9-Linux_i386_static.tar.gz
    Both these commands will create the directory abisuite-0.7.9-Linux_i386_static. 
  3. Change to that directory and become superuser. 
  4. Run the install script like: 
    5.   /install.sh
  5. By default, this will install AbiWord and supporting files to the /usr/local/AbiSuite on your hard drive. You will be given the opportunity to changes this if you wish. 
  6. You will also have the option to create links to the executable in a common bin directory. By default, this is /usr/local/bin. 
  7. Please consult the README spins for additional details. 
The installation process for the dynamic Tar files (abisuite-0.7.9-Linux_i386_dynamic.tar.gz, 2.6MB) is identical. Simply substitute _ dynamic for _ static in steps 1 and 2 above. If you want to read more about which libraries and versions that the dynamic version uses, please consult the README.