permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

3xp10r3r|X13 · 2011-10-13 15:54:27

Hey there everybody,
I recently switched from fedora 15 to arch linux and I have to admit that it is one of the more difficult distributions. The great thing is though, that you really build your own system. You get nothing more than you ask for. However, I am having some trouble with libreoffice. I am under the impression that all dependencies are installed, because I don't have any problems executing it as root. (so I think it is a permission thing)
Well, this is, what I get, when I try to run the program as a standard user:

$ libreoffice
[Java framework] Error in function createSettingsDocument (elements.cxx).
javaldx failed! 
Warning: failed to read path from javaldx

(process:1367): Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

(soffice:1367): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
	Using the fallback 'C' locale.

And here are the groups of my standard user (in case I just need to add him to some other groups):
lp, wheel, games, video, audio, optical

I really hope that you provide a solution or at least just forward me to an article from this ( seriously ) awesome wiki.

I do not want to leave this OS, because I really like it. It is light weight, puts a lot of value to simplicity (well, you are left with the terminal) and until now there was a guide for next to everything, so the amount you learn is pretty big.

Greetings from Germany

Last edited by 3xp10r3r|X13 (2011-10-15 10:55:06)

denisfalqueto · 2011-10-13 16:13:44

Googling about the error showed some chances of being a permission problem with ~/.openoffice.org2. But I don't have that directory in my system, but ~/.config/.libreoffice. I would suggest you check the permissions on this directory. Mine are 766.

3xp10r3r|X13 · 2011-10-13 16:35:32

Thanks a lot for your reply.
I have seen and read the threads about a similar issue concerning openoffice, but I can't find the named directory. I thought about changing the permissions, but I am more interested in the cause of this problem. Why does everything else work perfectly fine, after installing it? Just libreoffice seems to make trouble.

I have tried changing the permissions of the libreoffice directory and the bin-application. The result was the same error message. Apart from that theres another question, which bothers me: are you able to create your own group and assign programs to it? If so, you could create some office group. (I found a few things on that topic, but they were just talking about assigning groups, which I am already able to do)

Any other suggestions?!

denisfalqueto · 2011-10-14 01:52:08

Hehe, Arch Wiki comes to the rescue https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Li … work_Error. I've seen a similar problem in another post https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=123905

ConnorBehan · 2011-10-14 07:22:21

I'm guessing you have a /root/.config/.libreoffice directory but not a ~/.config/.libreoffice? Because libreoffice needs to successfully start as a user at least once before it can create one?

You could definitely make your own office group with the "groupadd" command, but when you first make one, it will not yet have any purpose. To assign programs, browse to a directory where an executable that you want is located such as /usr/bin/libreoffice. Like any other file, this executable will have an OWNER and a GROUP. The permissions go <owner>, <group>, <regular user> in that order and can be seen with "ls -l". So if you wanted to give your group permission to use the "libreoffice" command, you'd change it's group to office with "chgrp" and make sure that it is executable by members of its group. However... if you look at what the settings are now you will see the permissions "rwxr-xr-x". The fact that there is an x in all three positions means that it is already executable by regular users so there is no point in making a special group for it. A group would come in handy if you wanted to restrict the pool of users who can execute (or read or write) a particular file. If you were to change the permissions to "rwxr-xr--" then a user would have to be part of the group that owns libreoffice (or the owner or root) in order to run it. The groups that are around by default exist because of the multi-user history of UNIX... the developers think devices should be restricted by default. If you go to the /dev directory which houses file references to all of your devices, you'll see that the developers have done just that. Most of them have "---" permissions for the default user explaining the necessity of adding yourself to groups. If you were to take the security risk of changing the default user permissions to "rwx" then you wouldn't need to be in audio, video, optical or anything else. Additionally, the kernel would probably undo this change at the next boot unless you made a udev rule or something. Hope that helps.

3xp10r3r|X13 · 2011-10-14 16:11:57

I just love this wiki
Awesome, thanks - it worked perfectly fine!

Another thank you goes to ConnorBehan to explain how to create your own group and how senseless that idea would be.

Did the command I performed leave me with any security issues?

edit: is there a way to mark this thread as solved? I can't find that option.

Last edited by 3xp10r3r|X13 (2011-10-14 16:13:58)

bernarcher · 2011-10-14 20:27:58

3xp10r3r|X13 wrote:

is there a way to mark this thread as solved? I can't find that option.

Just edit the title of your first post and prepend [SOLVED] to it.

3xp10r3r|X13 · 2011-10-15 10:56:06

done it!

Arch Linux

#1 2011-10-13 15:54:27

permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

#2 2011-10-13 16:13:44

Re: permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

#3 2011-10-13 16:35:32

Re: permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

#4 2011-10-14 01:52:08

Re: permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

#5 2011-10-14 07:22:21

Re: permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

#6 2011-10-14 16:11:57

Re: permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

#7 2011-10-14 20:27:58

Re: permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

#8 2011-10-15 10:56:06

Re: permission problem with libreoffice... [SOLVED]

Board footer