OpenOffice Error: “javaldx: Could not find a Java Runtime Environment!”

somejotnotes — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:00:41 +0000

If you are running OpenOffice from the command line in Ubuntu, you may see the following error:

javaldx: Could not find a Java Runtime Environment!

This error can occur even if you have a valid Java Runtime Environment (JRE) on your machine.

The reason why that happens is that even though OpenOffice is installed by default in Ubuntu, the package that enables OpenOffice to use the JRE is not installed by default, due to space constraints. From the Ubuntu 8.04 Release Notes:

For reasons of disk space, the database and equation editor components of OpenOffice.org, as well as Java integration support, are not included on the installation CDs. To get the full OpenOffice.org suite after install, you can select “OpenOffice.org Office Suite” from the Applications -> Add/Remove menu, or install the openoffice.org metapackage using the package manager.

The way to get OpenOffice to see the JRE on your machine is to install the openoffice.org-java-common package. Alternately, you could install the openoffice.org metapackage (as described in the release notes above), which will install the openoffice.org-java-common package along with some other components of OpenOffice that were left out of the default install as well.

This confusing behaviour exists in Hardy and Intrepid. According to this Launchpad comment, in Jaunty the “javaldx: Could not find a Java Runtime Environment!” error message will be changed to something more helpful.

Additional references:

Jot Notes » OpenOffice

OpenOffice Error: “javaldx: Could not find a Java Runtime Environment!”