How to Force Install Obsolete OpenOffice Packages via Yum When LibreOffice is the Default


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Many legacy enterprise applications like Alfresco still require OpenOffice for document processing, despite the community's shift to LibreOffice. When attempting to install OpenOffice via yum:

yum install openoffice*

The package manager automatically substitutes LibreOffice packages due to the obsoletes flag in RPM metadata. Here's what you typically see:

Package openoffice.org-langpack-bg_BG is obsoleted by libreoffice-langpack-bg,
trying to install 1:libreoffice-langpack-bg-3.4.5.2-16.el6.x86_64 instead

There are several approaches to bypass this behavior:

# Method 1: Disable obsoletes temporarily
yum --setopt=obsoletes=0 install openoffice*

# Method 2: Use package URL with --nogpgcheck
yum install http://vault.centos.org/6.10/os/x86_64/Packages/openoffice.org-core-3.2.1-19.6.el6.x86_64.rpm --nogpgcheck

For production environments, setting up a local repository with OpenOffice packages is more sustainable:

# Create repo directory
mkdir -p /opt/local-repo/openoffice

# Download required OpenOffice packages
wget -P /opt/local-repo/openoffice \
http://vault.centos.org/6.10/os/x86_64/Packages/openoffice.org-*

# Create repository metadata
createrepo /opt/local-repo/openoffice

# Add to yum configuration
cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/local-openoffice.repo <

After installing OpenOffice, configure Alfresco to use it explicitly:

# In alfresco-global.properties
ooo.enabled=true
ooo.exe=/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice
ooo.user=
ooo.port=8100

Remember to test the OpenOffice service connection:

sudo -u alfresco /opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice \
--headless --accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8100;urp;" \
--nofirststartwizard

Older OpenOffice versions may require specific library versions. Use yum history to track changes:

yum history list openoffice*
yum history info

For systems with both suites installed, use alternatives:

alternatives --config libobasis3.3-calc

Many legacy systems like Alfresco still require OpenOffice rather than LibreOffice for document conversion functionality. When attempting to install OpenOffice via yum:

yum install openoffice*

The package manager automatically tries to substitute LibreOffice packages due to the obsoletes flag in RPM metadata:

Package openoffice.org-langpack-bg_BG is obsoleted by libreoffice-langpack-bg
trying to install 1:libreoffice-langpack-bg-3.4.5.2-16.el6.x86_64 instead

To bypass yum's automatic package substitution, we need to use several advanced yum flags:

yum install --setopt=obsoletes=0 \
--disablerepo=* \
--enablerepo=your-repo-with-openoffice \
openoffice*

If the yum method fails, download the OpenOffice RPMs manually and install with:

rpm -ivh --nodeps --force \
openoffice.org-core-3.1.1-19.6.el5.x86_64.rpm \
openoffice.org-writer-3.1.1-19.6.el5.x86_64.rpm

After successful installation, verify Alfresco can access OpenOffice:

# Check OpenOffice service
soffice --headless --accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8100;urp;" \
--nofirststartwizard &