HOWTO: installing OpenOffice 3.0 on OpenSolaris 2008.11

So you installed a fresh OpenSolaris 2008.11 system and now you'd like to get some real work done... which probably requires a word processor or a spreadsheet. Fortunately, OpenSolaris 2008.11 supports OpenOffice 3.0 : let me show you how to install it and maybe learn a few other things on the way

Once logged in your OpenSolaris system (actually, I'm writing this blog entry on an OpenSolaris image running in VirtualBox), you should see a desktop icon saying Add more software. Yeah ok, that's the boring way to do it : let's use the command line, shall we?

julien@opensolaris:~$ sudo apt-get install openoffice
bash: apt-get: command not found

Huh-huh. This is Solaris, my friend... Banging away apt-get commands won't help: you need to get familiar with the OpenSolaris package management tool, called 'Image Packaging System' (IPS).

As always, RTFM and then:

julien@opensolaris:~$ pkg install openoffice
Refreshing Catalog 1/1 opensolaris.org
Could not operate on /var/pkg/state/installed
because of insufficient permissions. Please try the command again using pfexec or otherwise increase your permissions.

Ah, you need root access. And no you will not use the su command : shame on you for even thinking about it. Let's use sudo instead.

julien@opensolaris:~$ sudo pkg install openoffice
Password:
julien is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

Grrrr, report it, I don't care : this is *my* (virtual) machine.

Let's add myself to the wheel group:

julien@opensolaris:~$ su
Password:
julien@opensolaris:~# vi /etc/group
add the line below and save the file
wheel::96:julien

Now, I need to allow the wheel group to use the sudo command:

julien@opensolaris:~# visudo
remove the initial # from the line below and save the file
#%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
julien@opensolaris:~# exit
exit
julien@opensolaris:~$

OK, let's log out and log in again to take into account this new group membership. Once this is done, let's open a terminal and try that pkg install command again:

julien@opensolaris:~$ sudo pkg install openoffice
DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB)
Completed 1/1 3932/3932 151.65/151.65
PHASE ACTIONS
Install Phase 4465/4465
PHASE ITEMS
Reading Existing Index 9/9
Indexing Packages 1/1

Looks OK. Now go to Applications / Office in the top menu and - as we say in France - voila!

OpenOffice 3.0 is ready to run *and* you learned about IPS *and* your OpenSolaris setup is a little nicer: aren't you happy you didn't click on that boring Add more software icon? I did it the hard way, I know. Story of my life :)

PS: if you really cannot live without apt-get and other GNU commands missing from OpenSolaris, you should try Nexenta, a free and open source operating system combining the OpenSolaris kernel with GNU application userland.