[Techtalk] Problems with StarOffice 5.2 (Gnome?)

[Magni Onsoien]

Hi,

I am having problems with running StarOffice 5.2 on my thin client
workstation. First of all, upgrading to OpenOffice is ATM out of
question, so please not tell me to try that :-) (I have actually done
that, and it helped, at least when OOo was called Staroffice 6b or
something similar, but we run SO5.2 here, so I have to get that
working.)

Configuration:
My workstation is a cheap, diskless P266 running Linux 2.4.17. The 
graphics card is a Daytona 3D something. I have also tried with an S3-card. 
I use an xserver that seems to be called just XFree86, I haven't 
investigated that further, so that may be an alias. Anyway it's XFree86 
Version 4.1.0.1. I have tried to run it with 8, 16 and 24 bpp (32 is not
supported in the xserver), all in 1280x1024, with no difference.

The server is running Debian 3.0, Linux 2.4.18.

I use sawmill (0.20.1-2.1) as my windowsmanager, I know it's old, but it
works and I like it just as it is right now.

Symptoms:
I start StarOffice with the soffice-command (it's installed under
/usr/local/office, which is in my path). If I have removed my
config-files for StarOffice, I get the workstation-installation-dialogue, 
i.e. with questions to install configfiles in my homedirectory. I just 
click ok all the way.

When that is done, I run soffice again. It then starts up like normal,
but after one-three seconds it freezes. Sometimes it just draw the
desktop, sometimes it gives me a tip before it freezes, but it always
freezes. As long as I don't change virtual desktop, it will just  stand
there frozen - showing the picture, but I can click anything (I can move
the mouse, but that's the xserver). If I change desktop and then go back
again, it will be "disappeared" - the sawmill-frame around it is there,
and the desktop is occupied, but I see my (grey) background in stead of
the SO desktop.

I then have to kill it with kill -9.

I get no errors, neither printed on screen or in logfiles, and I can see
no useful info in the starce-output (strace -f soffice). However,
xserverlog and output from strace are available at
http://www.initio.no/~magnio/soffice/

Other people at work can run Staroffice with no problems, with a slightly
different hardware configuration on their workstation, but against the 
same server. Some of them use KDE, otehrs something else (but noone
sawmill).

Does anyone know any problems with Staroffice that may fit in here? My
though has been the graphics card, S3 is said not to wortk too well with
Staroffice, but the Daytona-card has a different chipset, and it still
doesn't work. What about sawmill?


TIA,
Magni :)
-- 
sash is very good for you.