Linux.Desktop.Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 55. Reduce OpenOffice.org Startup Time

OpenOffice.org might seem like it
is composed of separate productivity
applications, such as a word processor and spreadsheet, but it
actually is closer to being a single large application with different
faces, one being a word processor, another a presentation manager,
etc. That's why it takes so long to start the first
OpenOffice.org application you decide to use. When you launch the
first OpenOffice.org application, such as the word processor, you can
run out to the nearest Starbucks for coffee and get back in time to
see the opening splash screen finish loading. OK,
that's a bit of an exaggeration, but sometimes it
seems like it takes that long to start an
OpenOffice.org application.

Yet, did you ever notice that if you leave the word processor
running, you can open a spreadsheet application very quickly?
That's because the behemoth engine behind the
spreadsheet was already loaded into memory when you started the word
processor.

The obvious solution to providing quick launches of OpenOffice.org is
to preload the bulk of OpenOffice.org when you first start your
window manager or desktop, before you launch your first application.

8.2.1. OOOQS, I Did It Again

A utility is available for KDE that does just that. It preloads much of
OpenOffice.org, and then makes it possible for OpenOffice.org
applications to start up almost immediately. The utility is called
OpenOffice.org Quickstarter, or oooqs, and it
was created by Christian Nitschkowski.

Quickstarter places an icon on the KDE panel. You right-click the
icon, and from a menu, select what you want to do with
OpenOffice.org, such as start a new text document or open an existing
document. Depending on the speed of your computer, the application
can appear on-screen almost immediately.

Many Linux distributions make the OpenOffice.org Quickstarter package
readily available. You can get the Debian version over the Internet
by logging in as root and issuing this command:

# apt-get install oooqs-kde

An RPM package is available for Fedora Core, SUSE, and other
RPM-based distributions and goes under the name
oooqs. You can retrieve this package from a
number of sites, including http://www.rpmfind.net. Chances are that if
you are running apt or yum,
you can simply install it with either of these two commands:

# apt-get install oooqs
# yum install oooqs

You can also download an RPM package of the latest version from
http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=366&release_id=1620.
Finally, if you prefer to roll your own software, you can download
the source code from http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=10156
or from http://segfaultskde.berlios.de/index.php?content=oooqs.

Depending on how you or the package manager installed the program,
either oooqs starts automatically and makes an
icon appear in the KDE panel, or you might have to start it manually
from the KDE menu the first time, after which it will start
automatically from then on.

8.2.2. The OOQSTART-GNOME of Antiquity

A similar hack is available that preloads
some
of OpenOffice.org and then places an icon on your GNOME panel. It is
called ooqstart-gnome, and it was written by
Kumaran Santhanam. If it works at all for your Linux distribution, it
works basically the same way oooqs works. You
right-click the icon to launch any of the OpenOffice.org applications
quickly, avoiding the typically long startup times.

The problem is that this utility has remained basically unchanged
since 2002, which makes its usefulness and compatibility
questionable. It seems to work well with Debian, even the unstable
branch, which has the most up-to-date software (for Debian, anyway).
Debian users can install the program with this command:

# apt-get install ooqstart-gnome

You can also find an RPM package of
ooqstart-gnome at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=47895.
When I tried to install it in Fedora Core 2, the installer complained
about unmet dependencies. I took the dangerous path and forced RPM to
ignore package dependencies, using this command:

# rpm -i --nodeps ooqstart-gnome-0.8.3-1.i386.rpm

Surprisingly, it installed and worked fine. Then I tried the same
thing with Fedora Core 3, the latest version. It
didn't work at all. (What did work, mysteriously
enough, was the KDE oooqs program. It appeared
in the GNOME panel just as it would in the KDE panel.)

8.2.3. Alternative Methods to Quick-Start OpenOffice.org

GNOME problems aside,
what
about all the other window managers? If you're used
to using WindowMaker or XFce 4, you're unlikely to
benefit from a program such as oooqs.

It so happens that OpenOffice.org has a feature called
quickstart, which works fine with any desktop or
window manager. You activate it with this command:

$ ooffice -quickstart &

Once you issue this command, the bulk of the OpenOffice.org engine
starts up invisibly in the background and remains theresort of
(more about this in a moment). This makes it possible to start up
Writer, Calc, or other OpenOffice.org applications very quickly. Of
course, no pretty icon appears in the panel, so you have to use the
regular KDE or GNOME menu icons, or another means of starting the
word processor, spreadsheet, or other OpenOffice.org applications.

Now let's get back to the "sort
of" part of the equation. First you start
ooffice -quickstart manually, or have it
launched automatically when you start your window manager or desktop
[Hack #72] . Then you start up your
OpenOffice.org productivity applications, do a little work, and then
close the applications.

As soon as you close the last OpenOffice.org productivity
application, the background quickstart process
automatically exits, too. Unlike the methods employed by
oooqs, quickstart
interprets the closing of the last application as an indication that
you're done with OpenOffice.org for the day. So, the
next time you open the word processor, it's back to
"trip to Starbucks" time again.
(Well, not necessarily. If you ran the OpenOffice.org application
recently, much of it might still be in memory, and it will start
quickly.)

8.2.4. Respawn Trick to the Rescue

Here's where the
respawn method I describe later in

[Hack #73]
comes in really handy. Log in as root, start
up your favorite editor, and create a file called
/usr/local/bin/oostay. Type the following text
into the file:

#!/bin/bash
# Restart ooffice -quickstart every time it exits
instances=`ps ax | grep -e -quickstart | grep -v grep | wc -l`
if [ $instances == 0 ]; then
while true; do ooffice -quickstart ; done
else
exit 1
fi

Save your work and make the file executable with this command:

# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/oostay

Now execute oostay instead of ooffice
-quickstart whenever you want
OpenOffice.org's quickstart
feature to keep running no matter how many times you open and close
OpenOffice.org applications. Best of all, this trick is completely
window manager- and desktop-agnostic. It doesn't
work any better or worse for KDE, GNOME, WindowMaker, Fluxbox, or any
other environment you like best. You can start up
/usr/local/bin/oostay automatically when you
start your window manager [Hack #72] .