How To Upgrade To Libre Office 6.0 On Linux
Libre Office 6.0 has been released! If you’re running an older version and you’re excited to try new features, now may be a great time to install the upgrade. In this article, we’ll go over all the different ways users can upgrade to the latest version of Libre Office.
In order for Libre Office to upgrade to the latest version, you need to be running Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux, Fedora, OpenSUSE, have the generic binary installed, using Snap packages, or Flatpaks.
Ubuntu
Libre Office 6.0 should be shipping with the latest version of Ubuntu (18.04), so a great way to get the new version would be to follow the upgrade path on April 17th. Don’t want to wait that long? First, check the update manager in Ubuntu. To check it, press the Windows key on your keyboard, type “update” click on the update manager to open it.
Use the Ubuntu update tool to install all of the latest updates for your PC. Once everything is up to date, open up a terminal window and add the official Libre Office PPA.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
Using the apt update command, we can tell Ubuntu to add the new Libre Office PPA to the system.
sudo apt update
Now that the new PPA is present, go back to the Ubuntu update tool and check for updates yet again. The new version of Libre Office (6.0) should appear as an update. Using Ubuntu, install the updates normally. Alternatively, use apt upgrade.
sudo apt upgrade
Debian
Debian Stable ships with Libre Office, but it’s usually pretty out of date and because of the way Debian works, it’s very unlikely that the new version appears on your PC as an update. If you want Libre Office 6.0 on your Debian Linux PC, you’ll need to follow these steps.
First, uninstall the old version of Libre Office included in Debian.
sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-*
Once the old version of the office suite is off of Debian, go to the Libre Office website and grab the 6.0 version. There are 64-bit and 32-bit DEB packages available. When the download finishes, use the terminal to CD into the download directory.
cd ~/Downloads
Even though we downloaded Libre Office in the Debian package format, we still have to deal with a Tar archive. Use this command to extract the Libre Office 6.0 archive.
tar -xvzf LibreOffice_*_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz
After extracting everything, use CD to move the terminal into the “DEBs” folder.
cd LibreOffice_*_Linux_x86-64_deb/ cd DEBS
Finally, use the dpkg tool to start the installation of Libre Office 6.0.
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
Arch Linux
Given that Arch Linux is a bleeding-edge style Linux distribution, you should already have version 6.0. If, for some reason you don’t, use this command to upgrade.
sudo pacman -U libreoffice-fresh
Don’t have it installed? Use the Pacman package tool to install it.
sudo pacman -S libreoffice-fresh
Fedora And OpenSUSE
Currently, on Fedora, users only have access to version 5.4. To upgrade your version of the office suite to 6.0, follow these steps. First, download the latest RPMs for Libre Office 6.0. There are 64-bit and 32-bit versions available. Once downloaded, uninstall the version of Libre Office already on your PC.
Fedora DNF
sudo dnf remove libreoffice-*
Suse Zypper
sudo zypper remove libreoffice-*
Note: OpenSUSE users, feel free to follow these instructions as well.
Next, extract the RPM archive.
cd ~/Downloads tar -xvzf LibreOffice_*_Linux_x86-64_rpm.tar.gz
Using CD, enter the RPM folder.
cd LibreOffice_*_Linux_x86-64_rpm cd RPMS
Use the package tool to install the Libre Office 6.0 RPM files.
Fedora DNF
sudo dnf install *.rpm
Suse Zypper
sudo zypper install *.rpm
Snap Package
Snap Packages are a great way to keep software up to date, especially because developers only have to put stuff in the Snap store and the user doesn’t have to deal with anything. If you’re running Libre Office via a Snap from Snapcraft, you’ll be able to easily upgrade to version 6.0. To update, open up a terminal and run the snap refresh command. This command goes out and downloads new versions of the snaps you’ve got on your PC.
sudo snap refresh
This command should automatically upgrade to the latest version of Libre Office. If it doesn’t, consider re-installing the Libre Office snap, to purge the old version in favor of a newer one.
sudo snap remove libreoffice sudo snap install libreoffice
Flatpak
Along with Snaps, Flatpak is a great way to use Libre Office. All software updates are taken care of on the development side, and the user doesn’t have to worry. To get version 6.0 of Libre Office, just update Flatpak and install updates.
flatpak update
Running this update should install the new version of Libre Office 6.0. If it doesn’t work, re-install it with:
flatpak uninstall flathub org.libreoffice.LibreOffice flatpak install flathub org.libreoffice.LibreOffice
Binary
Using Libre Office on Linux via a downloadable binary? If you’re looking for the newest version, you’ll need to download it and install manually. Keep in mind that this way of using Libre Office is very tedious. Consider installing via Flatpak or Snaps instead.
