Install Star Office as follows:
1: Ignore twat that goes on about XP. Probably an M$ stooge who's sucking up to his bosses by spreading FUD on newsgroups. Get a life boy, I'd guess 5% of MS Office users use more than 10% of it's features. Star Office is more than up to most people's needs (as is Linux).
2: log in via su or as root. cd to the directory that your Star Office install script and files are in and type:
./setup -net
then press enter.
when SO installs, put it in a user sharable directory e.g. /usr/local/staroffice
log out and log in as a user. Type cd /usr/local/staroffice (or wherever) then:
./setup
then hit enter
You can then install Star Office in your user directory. What's more, it installs into user directories as a thin client installation of around 1.8MB saving you shit loads of HDD space at the same time. All the users on the system can can install their own 1.8MB setup and if you have a server you can do the -net install in a publicly shared directory and run the thin client ./setup on each connected machine reducing HDD space usage and placing the load on the server.
I've used many versions of MS Office and have to say it doesn't really suck. There's just no way the cost is justified with Star Office, Open Office and SOT Office on the market. Yes, I have all three on various machines and they are all stable. The initial delay in running only counts the first time you run it when it loads everything into RAM cache. Subsequent runs are as quick or quiker than MS Office.
If Linux was as bad as our XP luuurving FUD merchant reckons Uncle bill wouldn't be browning his knickers.