How can I accelerate Libre Office 6.3 start? (SOLVED)

[pp4mnklinux]

Hello everybody:

I'm using Libre Office 6.3 as my default text editor, but it takes a lot of time to start for first time.

I have got 12Gb RAM, so there is no problem in use it, so I want to know how can I make Libre Office to be in RAM ready to start as fast as I want, or other solution you can make, because when I want to run a document, instead of clicking on this document is faster if I move it onto the program screen.

Please, let me know what can I do to avoid my 40 seconds waiting for this program to start.

Thanks a lot for your help.

[enrique]

I can not help you with ram. The setings I have are
pmedia=atahd pfix=fsck

Now I have moderate to fast CPU i7 4 core 2GHz

I use LibreOffice 6.2. On 1rst time LibreWriter take 10 seconds. On next it take only 2 seconds to open writer.

So what is your CPU? What type of HDD you have?

I wonder if LibreOffice can be set on sfs and place on FAST USB.

[nic007]

Hello everybody:

I'm using Libre Office 6.3 as my default text editor, but it takes a lot of time to start for first time.

I have got 12Gb RAM, so there is no problem in use it, so I want to know how can I make Libre Office to be in RAM ready to start as fast as I want, or other solution you can make, because when I want to run a document, instead of clicking on this document is faster if I move it onto the program screen.

Please, let me know what can I do to avoid my 40 seconds waiting for this program to start.

Thanks a lot for your help.

How are you using it. Did you install it as a .pet or running it as a sfs-addon?

[bigpup]

https://www.maketecheasier.com/speed-up-libreoffice/

LibreOffice slow? Here's how to speed it up

[enrique]

6.2 do not have Memory (under LibreOffice).

Code: Select all

Open up LibreOffice Writer.
Click Tools -> Options.
Click Memory (under LibreOffice).
Increase the Graphics Cache -> Use for LibreOffice value (try 128 MB to start and increase further if needed). 

Interesting, turn of updates, I have no java installed and it is disabled. Then there options on keys and validation. All this can take time to do thru a slow internet, or any script that you have installed.

In my opinion this program is getting to complicated for basic home word processing. Well if you do use the signing mechanism then is The Jewel of the Nile.

[mikeb]

Try alternatives like softmaker office which have free versions. Everything else is magnitudes faster than open office yet seem to handle common formats with no problem.
Even more so if your needs are straightforward text dicumeents as with a full suite 98 percent of it are features you will never use.

From a technical viewpoint Libre/open office are built on good old xul like firefox which was a neat system in the lightweight era 20 years ago but gets bogged down too easily with 'modern' bull requirements as its in effect another layer of software interpretation like java. I use version 3.6 and it still slow to open.... iirc windows can have it preload like MS office but not sure about linux.... perhaps a simple startup script during boot might help ...ie the general 'chose your option' screen has all the softaare loaded.

Mike

[pp4mnklinux]

6.2 do not have Memory (under LibreOffice).

Code: Select all

Open up LibreOffice Writer.
Click Tools -> Options.
Click Memory (under LibreOffice).
Increase the Graphics Cache -> Use for LibreOffice value (try 128 MB to start and increase further if needed). 

Interesting, turn of updates, I have no java installed and it is disabled. Then there options on keys and validation. All this can take time to do thru a slow internet, or any script that you have installed.

In my opinion this program is getting to complicated for basic home word processing. Well if you do use the signing mechanism then is The Jewel of the Nile.

LIBRE OFFICE 6.3 doesn't have memory option to modify.

[Semme]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/sho ... ?id=110448

[enrique]

UHMMM!

That issue was from 2017, and they intentional removed the option for faster boot. From what I read they seems no to care about what Linux users may have to wait.

You know what. i have install 6.2 as SFS. Now that I see all this unnecessary addons for what I do not really have use. I guess I will keep this SFS handy for any future use. And I personally will look for the fastest un-bloated version to install same way as SFS for easy switch just in case. And even study the rest of the Office Alternatives I been offer a few times in the forum.

Yes I am the type of user that think that Office Suite should come in two Flavors. A very Fast and simplify for general use at home. And the one they currently offer for the people that do in fact require to authenticate that documents comes from authorized signature agency or people. Except from old work 10 years ago I have not signed digitally any document lately. And even at that time Office was not used. Was with a separate proprietary programs.

[pp4mnklinux]

Thank you for your time and answers.

Have a nice day, my friends.

[nic007]

Just a pointer - At bootup Puppy copies the puppy files to RAM by default if you have enough RAM available. This will include the base sfs and the other drives like the the adrv and ydrv. So you want to include the application in the base sfs (doing a remaster) or boot it in the form of an adrv or ydrv for example.

[Mike Walsh]

I don't quite follow this one. For the life of me, I cannot understand how LibreOffice takes so long to 'fire-up'. 40 seconds? Huh??

I'm currently running the 6.3.6 AppImage in both Xenialpup64 and Bionicpup64. At most, it takes around 12-15 seconds to start. OK, so I'm nowadays using a 'Coffee Lake' quad-core running at nearly 4 GHz, along with 16 GB of DDR4, but even on the old Compaq tower (from 2004), it never took much longer.....maybe 20-22/3 seconds, at most.

Methinks there's summat not quite right with your set-up. I mean, you've even reported browsers crashing, and using a ton of RAM, with only a few tabs open, on this same 12 GB machine. If it was me, I'd be inclined to investigate my hardware, 'cos there's definitely summat odd going on here.....


Mike.

[mikeslr]

Hi Mike,

"I'm currently running the 6.3.6 AppImage in both Xenialpup64 and Bionicpup64. At most, it takes around 12-15 seconds to start."

Interesting observation. Although I had downloaded the AppImage of LibreOffice version 6.4.0.3, for daily use under the Puppies you mentioned I have an SFS of version 6.3.2.2. My computer isn't as resource-full as yours; particularly it only has 8 Gbs of RAM. I wondered if I'd have similar results. Didn't use a stop watch. But from the time I clicked the AppImage to the appearance of the Office Gui I could only "count to 6". Figure maybe 4 seconds. And as mostly I use LibreOffice-Writer, I still had to Select that module and click it. About another 4 seconds. A blank document opened 'instantly'. So figure 10 seconds.

Starting the SFS's LibreOffice-Writer from the Menu, the first time took 'a count to' 15. Really, about the same amount of time but less work than using the AppImage. But after closing it, opening it the second time took only 'a count to' 3.

Using an SFS, the spreadsheet and writer components of LibreOffice can easily be assigned as defaults for their functions: clicking an appropriate datafile will open its corresponding application. I'm not sure a similar assignment could be accomplished using an AppImage.

FWIW, my impression (did a couple of tests) is that 6-Series versions of LibreOffice have been more RAM-efficient than the 4-and-5 Series versions; and as good or better than Apache-OpenOffice, Softmaker and Kingsoft*; although the latter two may open faster. [The components of LIbreOffice are built around a common core. Stripping unwanted components scarcely reduces its 'Storage Footprint', and has no noticeable effect on the speed of the remaining components. But, with a little searching of the Forum you should be able to find an OpenOffice series 3 cut-down to just Wordprocessor, Spreadsheet and Presentation. IIRC, an SFS, Precise? Edit: Found it ooolight, https://archive.org/download/Puppy_linux-ASRI].

What's really missing is a Word-processor ONLY Application more stable than Abiword. I've looked; TED and a couple others I've tried will function but do not present an intuitive GUI.

Frankly, a couple seconds doesn't make a whole lot of difference. But, if you rarely use a word-processor (or spreadsheet) and have a 64-bit system, then it seems the AppImage is the best choice. AFAIK, no one publishes a 32-bit AppImage. And, IIRC, LibreOffice has stopped constructing them. From experience, you can take any version of LIbreOffice (tar.gz, deb, SFS, etc.) unpack it and repackage it. Perhaps fredx181's 'create-portable' application could be used to create a 32-bit AppImage.

Than again, Mike: Didn't you work out a technique which would load Google-Chrome at bootup so that, although not opened, it would open faster? If so, maybe something similar for LibreOffice?

* Kingsoft: It's bad enough that everything I do is recorded by NASA and Google. when I can, I avoid sharing my life with The People's Republic of Communist China as well. It's very Orwellian that they named their Suite KIngsoft. Or perhaps it's a double entendre.

[LateAdopter]

One factor is the use of squashfs with XZ compression which is notoriously slow at decompression. GZIP decompression is much faster for normal use, and an extra 10% to 20% disk space is unimportant even with vast programs like LibreOffice.

[Mike Walsh]

Hiya, Mike.

Yah; that was a slightly 'conservative' estimate, TBH. I've just fired 6.3.6 up in jrb's Quirky64-lite; I didn't even reach the count of 5...

Who's quibbling about a few seconds between friends, huh?

Than again, Mike: Didn't you work out a technique which would load Google-Chrome at bootup so that, although not opened, it would open faster? If so, maybe something similar for LibreOffice?

Not guilty, mate. Although I did indeed make liberal use of it, credit for that discovery lies firmly with ETP, when he was building Chromebook Pup v.1. It's one of the multitude of "--switches" that are available for the Chromium browser & 'clones'. And it's astonishing the number of people who still think Chrome is the fount from which all the others flow. It, too, is merely a Chromium 'clone'.....although I'm certain Big Brother frowns upon folks like me who keep repeating that!

I doubt it would work for LibreOffice; I believe the "--silent-launch" 'switch' is peculiar to the Chromium code-base. I could, of course, be wrong. It frequently happens....!!


Mike.

[mikeb]

One factor is the use of squashfs with XZ compression which is notoriously slow at decompression. GZIP decompression is much faster for normal use, and an extra 10% to 20% disk space is unimportant even with vast programs like LibreOffice.

Indeed the obsession with compression when so much space and cpu is wasted elsewhere I find amusing....rhymes well too.

If the idea of this distro is is to be light and fast to keep older hardware ticking over nicely it does seem at odds to use cpu heavy methods...but then again i don't believe puppy's edict as about such things anymore...thats the official line i remember....supporting our old sh*te was deemed inconvenient.

We built some versions of mksquasfs with various levels of gz compression which were very fast in comparison.

https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Docume ... mmand_line
gives possible command line options perhaps used in say delayedrun...for those who like to experiment.

to real progress...

mike

[nic007]

xz decompression is not slow but xz compression is. I don't notice much difference in terms of decompression times. The result in file size using maximum xz compression (very slow to compress) can be about 40 % smaller than gzip compression which is significant and impressive. But I agree, with disc space not really an issue these days, using gzip is the better option. That said, being able to compress a base sfs which would be more than 140MB in size with gzip compression to 105MB with max xz compression is quite impressive. And if you are going to compress only once or extremely rarely why not use xz compression, decompression is not really a problem as mentioned.

[pp4mnklinux]

Thanks everybody.

In the end, I finally solved this slow startup only changing the JAVA SUPPORT.


TOOLS, OPTIONS, ADVANCED uncheck USE JAVA RUNTIME ENVIRONMENT.

And it works efficiently for me.


THANK U ALL

[mikeb]

Ah ha......nice one. good old java the dog lol...amazes me how they got it to work ok on android.


Btw i notice the difference with xz compressed vmlinuz so unpacking the stuff is affected.... mounting the sfs wont be affected...its reading the files that is.
Software boys with their toys.....


Open orafice rools

Mike

[enrique]

pp4mnklinux
I am glad you found improvement. And thank for the opportunity to allow me understand I do not need to boot with this huge sfs.

This old " 40 seconds" was so strange.
I love to know. what was your time improvement. How long it takes now to boot 1rst time, Then close all Libre and measure the second time? Please let us know, And can you tell use your CPU, ram and from where you booting Puppy. What is your source of Office, sfs a pet or downloaded from somewhere else?


mikeslr in the last few weeks you had starting to become my hero. Thanks for the advise I will be testing those old links. See I had just realized that I do not need to boot that huge SFS of Office that I mostly not used. Yes I need a better than abbywordprocesor but gnumeric is fine for the little things I do at home. And I bet you that my Puppy boot time will improve to without that huge sfs. I can always manually load the sfs when really needed.