We'd like to continue the production of the 32-bit deb packages

[Michael Weghorn]

Hi!

I'm not sure on how to get the exact same build result as the official
LibreOffice deb packages, but in general, building LibreOffice and
creating the packages requires these steps:

1) install build dependencies

2)
    ./autogen.sh <OPTIONS>
3)
    make


I suppose using the following command in step 1 should give a result
pretty close to the official TDF builds:

./autogen.sh --with-distro=LibreOfficeLinux --enable-release-build
--with-package-format=deb --with-lang=ALL --disable-dependency-tracking

In particular, '--with-package-format=deb' will enable building the deb
packages.
(You can also create a file 'autogen.input' and put the options there
and then just call './autogen.sh' instead of explicitly passing the
options to autogen.sh every time.)

Some general instructions on building LibreOffice can also be found in
the wiki [1] and there's also a page on release builds [2], though I
can't say how up to date that one is (e.g. the info on build host being
CentOS 5 is a bit outdated).

I haven't built Libreoffice from the tar files so far (and can't test at
the moment), but you'll probably have to extract the
'libreoffice-dictionaries-?.?.?.?.tar.xz',
'libreoffice-help-?.?.?.?.tar.xz' and
'libreoffice-translations-?.?.?.?.tar.xz' into the extracted
'libreoffice-?.?.?.?.tar.xz'.
(Alternatively, you can build from git, where those are handled as git
submodules. LibreOffice release versions can be recognized by their git
tags.)

If there are any further questions, please just ask on this mailing list
or on IRC in channel #libreoffice-dev.

Best regards,
Michael

[1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development
[2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/ReleaseBuilds

On 26/07/2019 17.01, dreamnext at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi! Greetings from the Escuelas Linux team. We are small Linux
> distribution that can be downloaded from
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/escuelaslinux/.
> Some more references about our activity can be found by doing an
> Internet search, or on own Facebook account, escuelas.linux
> 
> We still provide a 32-bit edition of our distro, because among our users
> there are a lot of low-income public schools, in which are still in use
> old computers with about 512 MB to a 1 GB of RAM. That amount of RAM
> would make running a Linux 64-bit system awfully slow, so we have to
> accommodate to the needs and possibilities of what is available in poor
> areas, those in which even having an old computer is still somehow a luxury.
> 
> We perfectly understand that TDF releasing 32-bit Linux LibreOffice
> packages was not worth anymore, given the small amount of downloads.
> Certainly some of those downloads were made by us, as we only required
> one download of a given LibreOffice version to have it installed in our
> distro and be used in hundreds of computers. A lot of those computers
> could not even be traceable, since there are no Internet connection in
> poor or remote schools. But we believe that even if we reported who and
> where are those schools, that would be still a small amount to be worth
> the effort and resources required to match the bigger amounts of
> downloads that seems to be receiving the LibreOffice 32-bit Windows
> counterpart.
> 
> Given that TDF ended the provision of Linux 32-bit distribution neutral
> binaries, but not the 32-bit compatibility, we would like to step up to
> produce by ourselves the 32-bit distribution neutral deb packages from
> LibreOffice 6.3 and up. We are not aware of other distros or volunteers
> releasing the most recent LibreOffice version to date (6.3) as 32-bit
> distribution independent binaries.
> 
> Recently, the official LibreOffice Blog published instructions about how
> to compile LibreOffice on Linux. However, we’d like to be able not only
> to compile LibreOffice, but we would like to learn how to be able to
> produce by ourselves the same set of 32-bit distribution-independent deb
> packages that were compressed as a .tar.gz, that is, the LibreOffice
> binaries (LibreOffice_?.?.?_Linux_x86-_deb.tar.gz), the translated user
> interface (the LibreOffice_?.?.?_Linux_x86-_deb_langpack_??.tar.gz) and
> the offline help (LibreOffice_?.?.?_Linux_x86-_deb_helppack_??.tar.gz).
> As for the user interface and the offline packages, our main focus would
> be Spanish language.
> 
> On the download section is always available the following source code
> packages:
> libreoffice-?.?.?.?.tar.xz
> libreoffice-dictionaries-?.?.?.?.tar.xz
> libreoffice-help-?.?.?.?.tar.xz
> libreoffice-translations-?.?.?.?.tar.xz
> 
> But, given our inexperience, we don’t know how to use this source
> packages to produce the same set of 32-bit deb packages as were
> previously provided by TDF. Since LibreOffice is distributed in a lot of
> languages, we guess that the user interface and offline packages are not
> created manually one by one by hand, some useful scripts could have been
> created to automate as far as possible those tasks.
> 
> So, we respectfully ask for some pointers and steps required to reach
> this goal. In this way, we might be able to continue the production of
> the 32-bit deb packages, freeing TDF of that burden as planned but, at
> the same time, we could provide those packages for the parties that
> could be still interested in them. We could not be able to support
> rpm-based binaries though, someone else would have to step up if there's
> a need for that.
> 
> Please let us know if this request of help is feasible for the
> Developer(s) that are responsible of the LibreOffice packaging.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LibreOffice mailing list
> LibreOffice at lists.freedesktop.org
> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
> 

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