OOo problems [UK Linux]

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From: Philip Scott on 18 Jan 2010 10:02

On 18/01/10 13:55, R. Georgeson wrote:
> I seek advice. Sorry this rambles a bit.
>
> I'm doing a set of macroed spreadsheets (to replace what I did some time
> ago - on Lotus 123R5, dedicated stuff for a club). I intended ultimately
> to to run it on current Ubuntu which seems to be the choice of Windows
> refugees and I do want something with a graceful? upgrade path.
>
> So I installed Ubuntu 9.10 on this machine (I run Debian), copied it all
> across and tried it.
>
> Ubuntu 9.10 installs Openoffice 3 which is *apallingly* slow. Just typing
> a value into a cell you wait while this damn progress bar chunters across
> the screen while on OOo2 a medium complexity macro works so quickly and
> undramatically you barely know it's done it. Actually I'm not sure it
> isn't the progress bar that's slowing it down, just typing a number into a
> cell seems to take as long as said medium complexity macro.
>
> So OOo3 is a no-no (there are other irritations, eg the friendly tooltip
> which pops up when you're editing the status line and covers the bit
> you're trying to edit). It's not something I'd want to put in front of the
> "Does anything except Microsoft exist?" membership.
>
> AFAICS the options are:
>
> a) get rid of the progress bar and the tooltips and maybe 3 would be
> usable; is that possible, I couldn't find a way.
>
> b) install an older copy of Ubuntu. But that doesn't help the long term
> upgrade path
>
> c) install current Ubuntu and somehow persuade it to back down to OOo 2 -
> could it be persuaded to use the Debian archives for OOo?
>
> d) install Debian. I'd do that like a shot but the users won't have heard
> of it and would probably regard it with even deeper suspicion.
>
> The other consideration is that I'd like to have it upload stuff via the
> club's WiFi. Remarks elsewhere in the ng suggest that setting up a
> wireless dongle may not be straightforward, which distribution would be
> better at doing it for me ('cos I really don't know what I'm doing with
> that).
>
>

Have you tried turning off autocalculate (tools->cell contents), though
it may not be acceptable for your app? I had to do that for one
spreadsheet and inserted a recalculate in the macros where it was
needed. The macros ran a lot faster as a result.

Have you tried changing the iterations/accuracy settings
(Tools->options->...calc->calculate)?

The only time I had a *real* slowdown involving macros, it was cured by
ensuring a valid java runtime was selected (even though Java was not
being used) - (tools->options->OOo->java). That caused all 2GB memory
and 4Gb swap to fill up in no time flat :-(

--
PeeGee

"Nothing should be able to load itself onto a computer without the
knowledge or consent of the computer user. Software should also be able
to be removed from a computer easily."
Peter Cullen, Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist (Computing 18 Aug 05)

From: chris on 18 Jan 2010 11:05

From: rich on 18 Jan 2010 11:08

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:55:35 +0000, R. Georgeson wrote:

> I seek advice. Sorry this rambles a bit.
>
> I'm doing a set of macroed spreadsheets (to replace what I did some time
> ago - on Lotus 123R5, dedicated stuff for a club). I intended ultimately
> to to run it on current Ubuntu which seems to be the choice of Windows
> refugees and I do want something with a graceful? upgrade path.
>
<snip>
> Ubuntu 9.10 installs Openoffice 3 which is *apallingly* slow. Just
>
> So OOo3 is a no-no (there are other irritations, eg the friendly tooltip
> which pops up when you're editing the status line and covers the bit
> you're trying to edit). It's not something I'd want to put in front of
> the "Does anything except Microsoft exist?" membership.
<snip>
> AFAICS the options are:
>
> a) get rid of the progress bar and the tooltips and maybe 3 would be
> usable; is that possible, I couldn't find a way.
>
> b) install an older copy of Ubuntu. But that doesn't help the long term
> upgrade path
>
> c) install current Ubuntu and somehow persuade it to back down to OOo 2
> - could it be persuaded to use the Debian archives for OOo?
>
> d) install Debian. I'd do that like a shot but the users won't have
> heard of it and would probably regard it with even deeper suspicion.

Have you tried Gnumeric instead of OpenOffice? Might be worth an
experiment.

Lotus 123 R5 ??? - was part of SmartSuite, Maybe it will run under wine -
if you have the installation files?.

--
rich

From: Jim A on 18 Jan 2010 14:05

R. Georgeson wrote:
> I seek advice. Sorry this rambles a bit.
>
> I'm doing a set of macroed spreadsheets (to replace what I did some time
> ago - on Lotus 123R5, dedicated stuff for a club). I intended ultimately
> to to run it on current Ubuntu which seems to be the choice of Windows
> refugees and I do want something with a graceful? upgrade path.
>
> So I installed Ubuntu 9.10 on this machine (I run Debian), copied it all
> across and tried it.
>
> Ubuntu 9.10 installs Openoffice 3 which is *apallingly* slow. Just typing
> a value into a cell you wait while this damn progress bar chunters across
> the screen while on OOo2 a medium complexity macro works so quickly and
> undramatically you barely know it's done it. Actually I'm not sure it
> isn't the progress bar that's slowing it down, just typing a number into a
> cell seems to take as long as said medium complexity macro.
>
> So OOo3 is a no-no (there are other irritations, eg the friendly tooltip
> which pops up when you're editing the status line and covers the bit
> you're trying to edit). It's not something I'd want to put in front of the
> "Does anything except Microsoft exist?" membership.
>
> AFAICS the options are:
>
> a) get rid of the progress bar and the tooltips and maybe 3 would be
> usable; is that possible, I couldn't find a way.
>
> b) install an older copy of Ubuntu. But that doesn't help the long term
> upgrade path
>
> c) install current Ubuntu and somehow persuade it to back down to OOo 2 -
> could it be persuaded to use the Debian archives for OOo?
>
> d) install Debian. I'd do that like a shot but the users won't have heard
> of it and would probably regard it with even deeper suspicion.
>
> The other consideration is that I'd like to have it upload stuff via the
> club's WiFi. Remarks elsewhere in the ng suggest that setting up a
> wireless dongle may not be straightforward, which distribution would be
> better at doing it for me ('cos I really don't know what I'm doing with
> that).
>
>

I was going to say something similar to what Philip mentioned. It can
make a big difference to some OpenOffice operations whether you have a
valid Java client installed.

--
www.slowbicyclemovement.org - enjoy the ride

From: chris on 19 Jan 2010 04:00

On 18/01/10 23:46, R. Georgeson wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:05:28 +0000, chris wrote:
>
>> On 18/01/10 13:55, R. Georgeson wrote:
>
>>> Ubuntu 9.10 installs Openoffice 3 which is *apallingly* slow. Just
>>> typing a value into a cell you wait while this damn progress bar
>>> chunters across the screen while on OOo2 a medium complexity macro
>>> works so quickly and undramatically you barely know it's done it.
>>> Actually I'm not sure it isn't the progress bar that's slowing it down,
>>> just typing a number into a cell seems to take as long as said medium
>>> complexity macro.
>
> <...>
>> Are you sure this isn't an Ubuntu problem? I don't use macros, but do
>> use OOo 3.1 calc extensively. It /is/ slow to start up, but once loaded
>> runs well enough.
>
> Could be I suppose, I guess I'd need to install OOo3 on Debian to find out
> and I'm not sure I want to do that.

You could try the stock version from OOo itself on your Ubuntu install.
There's a deb available. You'll probably need to remove the Ubuntu
version first, though.

> Do you get the progress bar when you
> type a value into a cell that's referenced in a couple of other cells and
> how long does it take? A little over a second here, if I try I can type
> single digit values into 3 adjacent cells while the first progress bar is
> still chuntering.

Nope. It's virtually instantaneous. The only time I see that progress
bar is during saves or when I'm modifying data cells which are
referenced in large plots.

>> What's the spec of the machine you're using?
>>
> Dual core AMD 64 bit with 2Gb of RAM. Not the latest and greatest but a
> decent amount of grunt I would think.

It's more than I've got here: 3GHz P4 with Hyperthreading and 1Gb RAM.
Are you running 64bit Ubuntu?

>> Is the macro new, or has been 'copied' from 123? If it was copied it may
>> have gone a bit screwy during conversion.
>
> This is something completely different, written in OOo basic, though doing
> pretty much what the originals did. I suppose there's some justification
> for the progress bar doing its thing when macros are run, though it's a
> leap backwards, but I do expect instant service when (say) I type a 5 into
> a cell.

Yes, that sounds wrong. How about investigating a different distro? Like
Fedora or Mandriva.

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