Installing WordPerfect 8.0 for Linux on a distro current in 2024

Version 6.1

October 2024

This page on WordPerfect 8.0 is included for completeness. It is mainly of historical interest.

Versions of WordPerfect 8.0

WordPerfect 8.0 for Linux was released by Corel in 1998. There are two versions of WordPerfect 8.0.

WordPerfect 8.0 Personal Edition (PE) was released on a CD contained in a boxed package. This is the complete version. It was installable by means of a script. But the original script will not work on distros current in 2024.

WordPerfect 8.0 Downloadable Personal Edition (DPE) is a cut-down version. It was made available in late 1998 from the Corel server, as a freely downloadable tarball. Only a few fonts (the basic fonts) are included in the DPE version, and it does not include a font-installer. After the contents of the tarball have been extracted, installation proceeds by means of a script. But the original script will not work on distros current in 2024.

The DPE version was also made available as an rpm package as part of several distros (such as Suse 6.1). In most cases, the rpm format was essentially a mere container, and installation had to be completed by means of a script. In such cases the original script will not work on distros current in 2024.

The sole exception is the rpm package, named "WordPerfect-8.0-7.i386.rpm" or "WordPerfect-8.0-17.i386.rpm", contained in versions 2.2 or 2.3 of Caldera OpenLinux. This is a normal rpm, from which actual code can be extracted.

It is only by the use of the Caldera package that WordPerfect 8.0 can be directly installed on a current distro. The PE version, and other variants of the DPE version, can only be installed by the use of their scripts, and these scripts are incompatible with current distros. Moreover the code cannot be extracted in other ways, since it is not packaged in a format suitable for extraction. These other versions and variants can, however, be installed on earlier distros, such as Ubuntu 8.04 and OpenSuse 11.4, and the files so installed can be copied over to and then run on a current distro.

The method of installation of WordPerfect 8.0 DPE on a current distro from the Caldera rpm package is elaborated below.

It may be that a similar procedure for manual installation can be used to install WordPerfect 7 from the rpm contained in the third CD of the Redhat 5.1 distro.

Installation from the Caldera rpm by script

Four scripts, entitled "wp80in.sh" (for debian-based systems), "wp80in-suse.sh" (for OpenSuse),"wp80in-mag.sh" (for Mageia and Fedora), and wp80in-slack.sh (for Slackware), have been devised by the present author for the installation of WordPerfect 8.0 from the Caldera rpm package on some current distros.

The first should work on most debian-based distros. It has been tested on Linux Mint 22. The second has been tested on OpenSuse 15.6. The third has been tested on Mageia 9 and Fedora 40. The fourth has been tested on Slackware 14.2.

The scripts may be downloaded from the links above. In the context of supported distros, the relevant script should be used in preference to manual installation. To download such a linked file in Firefox, you should right-click on the link, and then select "Save Link As..." from the resulting menu.

To run such a script, in all cases except Slackware, you should create a working directory named "~/Downloads/wp-inst", and copy into that directory the WordPerfect 8.0 rpm from the Caldera CD. The script should be run in a terminal window as a normal user.

In the case of Slackware, you should create a working directory named "/root/Downloads/wp-inst", and copy into that directory the WordPerfect 8.0 rpm from the Caldera CD. In this case the script should be run in a root terminal window.

Once WordPerfect 8.0 has been thus installed, it should be possible to run it by giving, as a normal user in a terminal window, the command: "xwp80". Preferably the command should be given from your home directory.

Once WordPerfect 8.0 has been thus installed and first run as a normal user, you may need to run it once as administrator in order to eliminate a "too many processes" error.

This can be done, on debian-based systems or on Mageia or Fedora, by giving, in a normal terminal window, the command: "sudo xwp80 -adm".

On OpenSuse you should open a root terminal from your Linux menu, and give the command: "xwp80 -adm" there. On Slackware you should give the command: "xwp80 -adm" in a root terminal window.

You may also need to change the ownership of the ~/.wprc directory and its contents from root to the user, in order to eliminate a "locked files" error, and enable the user to set up his preferences. This may be achieved by giving in a terminal the command "sudo chown -R 1000 ~/.wprc".

The wrapper enabling use of the WP print manager is included in the wp-utils package in deb and tgz formats. To load the WP Print Manager, in debian-based systems, or Mageia or Fedora, you should give in a normal terminal window the command: "sudo xwppmgr80".

On OpenSuse, you should open a root terminal from your Linux menu, and give the command: "xwppmgr80" there. On Slackware you should give the command: "xwppmgr80" in a root terminal window.

Since March 2021, installation of the Caldera WP 8.0 RPM version by script alongside a pre-existing WP 8.1 installation will not overwrite the "xwp" executable for WP 8.1 in "/usr/bin". In that situation the "xwp" executable for WP 8.0 there will be named "xwp80".

Moreover in such cases the script installing WP 8.0 will enable the extra fonts belonging to WP 8.1 to be used also in WP 8.0.

Also since March 2021, where there is no existing WP 8.1 installation, the script installing WP 8.0 can also install, along with the WP 8.0 program, the extra fonts included on the CD accompanying the Harris volume entitled "The WordPerfect for Linux Bible". To enable this to be done, you must, before the script is run, copy these fonts into a "fonts" sub-directory in the working directory.

Manual installation from the Caldera rpm

In general, as regards the manual installation of WordPerfect 8.0 from the Caldera rpm package, an extraction procedure similar to that recommended for the manual installation of WordPerfect 8.1 from its debian packages, specified elsewhere on this site, should be followed.

If you are installing on a 64-bit distro, you should first ensure that i386 is an available architecture; on this, see the Debian Multiarch wiki. Then you should install the libc6:i386 or an equivalent package from your normal repository.

Next you should install the same support packages (preferably "wp-utils" as a debian package or, more often, as a tgz tarball) as in the case of a manual installation of WP 8.1. But the "wp-utils" package should never be installed on an arch-based distro.

Warnings about the "wp-utils" package

The "wp-utils" package (whether in deb format, or in tarball format) is designed to place the libc5 files needed by WordPerfect in the "/lib" directory.

This may cause problems with a distro in which "/lib" has become a symbolic link to "/usr/lib". In such a case, if one uses the "tar" utility to install the tarball package to the "/" directory, one must add to the "tar" command the option "--keep-directory-symlink". Thus the appropriate command should be (for example):

"sudo tar -xvzf wp-utils-3.7.tgz --keep-directory-symlink".

Omitting the "keep" option could cause "tar" to overwrite the symbolic link, and thereby prejudice the operation of the distro as a whole.

More fundamentally, the "wp-utils" package should not in any circumstances be installed on an arch-based distro, such as Manjaro or EndeavourOS. This is because, in current arch-based distros, not only is "/lib" configured as a symbolic link to "/usr/lib", but that folder is used to contain 64-bit libc6 files. Installing the "wp-utils" package will overwrite some of the latter files, and is likely to destabilize the distro.

An alternative method

If you cannot successfully use the "wp-utils" package, then even if your distro is debian based, you should use the shlibs5 package for libc5 support.

In that scenario you will also need to copy several files from "/usr/i486-linux-libc5/lib" to "/lib". The relevant files: libXt.so.6, libX11.so.6, libXpm.so.4, libSM.so.6, libICE.so.6, libc.so.5, and libm.so.5.

In the case of an arch-based distro, you must not copy these files to "/lib", as this would probably destabilize the distro. You will need to find some other way of making them available to WordPerfect.

Next steps

Next one must give the command: "ldconfig -c old".

Since there are no font packages and no font installer provided by the DPE version, there is no need to install any type1inst package.

Then one follows one of the same extraction methods for the WordPerfect code as may be used for manually installing a WordPerfect 8.1 deb. The present writer recommends the following streamlined method. Whether in a one should open a root terminal and give the command "alien -t WordPerfect-8.0-7.i386.rpm" or "alien -t WordPerfect-8.0-7.i386.rpm", and then "installpkg WordPerfect-8.0.tgz".

As an alternative, the Caldera WP 8.0 may be installed directly as an rpm in OpenSuse. After creating the necessary support environment (as described above), the WordPerfect rpm package may be installed using "zypper install WordPerfect-8.0-7.i386.rpm" or "zypper install WordPerfect-8.0-17.i386.rpm". This will probably download a large number of 32-bit packages.

Once WordPerfect 8.0 has been thus installed manually, it should be possible to run it by giving any of these commands: "xwp" or "/usr/bin/xwp", or /opt/wp8/wpbin/xwp".

Once WordPerfect 8.0 has been thus installed and first run as a normal user, you may (especially on an OpenSuse system) need to run it once as administrator in order to eliminate a "too many processes" error. This can be done by giving the command: "sudo xwp -adm", or making an similar entry in the Linux menu (but omitting "sudo" and running as a different user, "root"). In some distros (such as OpenSuse), only the latter method will work.

The wrapper enabling use of the WP print manager is included in the wp-utils deb and tgz utilities. When this has been installed, you must copy "/opt/wp8/shbin10/xwppmgr" to "xwppmgr.bin". Then, to use the wrapper, give (in a terminal window) the command: "sudo xwppmgr80".

Manual installation of the Caldera WP 8.0 RPM version alongside a pre-existing WP 8.1 installation will overwrite the "xwp" executable in "/usr/bin". In this scenario you should rename "xwp" in "/usr/bin" to (for example) "xwp81" before installing WP 8.0.

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Last updated in October 2024.