Running Microsoft Project files (.mpp) on Ubuntu

Project plans give me creeps sometime due to their sheer complexity and at others their stupidity in under or over estimating the required efforts!

Anyway, if you are using Ubuntu or any other Linux system and your project manager didn't bother to supply a PDF version of the plan, then you are stuck!

Unless you wish to install Wine and further buy a license for Microsoft Project and blah blah. There is an easier alternative called OpenProject which lets you open .mpp files.

OpenProj itself isn't the best viewer for project plans and I myself find it difficult to navigate around it at time, but hey it comes for free and does the job.

Easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to download the .deb file from here

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/files/

Do also visit the http://openproj.org/openproj for more details.

And I forgot to mention, there are installable files for Windows and Mac too.

Installing RAD7 on Ubuntu 8.0.4 / Hardy Heron

I have installed RAD7 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron a couple of times, As with many common products which were not originally meant for Ubuntu, its not a simple click and install as it is with Windows.

So, if you are struggling to get RAD7 installed on your kubuntu/ubuntu machine here is the procedure:

1) make /bin/sh point at bash: cd /bin; sudo ln -sf bash sh

2) install RAD7

3) replace the shell in the scripts: sudo perl -p -i -e "s/\/sh$/\/bash/" /opt/IBM/SDP70/runtimes/base_v61/bin/*.sh

4) replace the shell in the script for the profile management: sudo perl -p -i -e "s/\/sh$/\/bash/" /opt/IBM/SDP70/runtimes/base_v61/bin/ProfileManagement/*.sh

5) enable write access to the profile, so that you can develop using your user account: sudo chmod -R a+w /opt/IBM/SDP70/runtimes/base_v61/profiles/AppSrv01

6) restore the original link: cd /bin; sudo ln -sf dash sh

Here is a a tutorial that I originally referred to,

http://alexcozzi.blogspot.com/2007/01/rational-application-developer-7-on.html

I personally skipped the steps 3 to 6 and everything is running hunky dory,

I faced a couple of additional issues

First, where the initial installation screen would display blank. This had to do with the visual effects, which are set to normal by default. This messes with the installation script and causes some AWT exceptions. To fix this,

1) Click on System --> Preferences --> Appearance

2) Click on the Visual Effects tab, select none and close.

Start your install again and it should be ok.

If you are still facing issues like I did, then the library libstdc++.so.5 might be missing or the correct version might not be installed on your system.

run sudo apt-get install libstdc++5