Working with .mpp (Microsoft Project Plan) files in linux

Use Projity openproj. http://openproj.org/
"OpenProj is a free, open source desktop alternative to Microsoft Project."
Very good, it read the .mpp I was interested in no bother.
Other linux project planning tools don't work much with .mpps.
Colleagues have used it to edit .mpps and exchange them with Windows people.

Downloads here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/files/
The rpm worked well for me on Fedora 10.
The .deb (openproj_1.4-2.deb) installed and runs but menus/gui were invisible for me on ubuntu jaunty.
I have some java dev packages installed so my java environment is not a bog-standard one.
google problem trap: help problem openproj cannot see interface b0rked doesn't work horrendous argh help!

Projity was acquired recently by Serena Software.
Common Public Attribution Licensed.
Implemented in Java.
Seems to be a relationship with Sun and distros so hopefully coming as the project planning part of StarOffice and OpenOffice sometime. No I'm not affiliated in any way and still don't even like java though somewhat grudgingly have to admit it's somewhat useful.


vi `which openproj`
# Set it to log to file and control what version of java it chooses.
# The command-line it chose was this:
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/bin/java -Xms128m -Xmx768m -jar /usr/share/openproj/openproj.jar --silentlyFail true
# This command-line worked for me (just use my default java which is 1.6):
java -Xms128m -Xmx768m -jar /usr/share/openproj/openproj.jar

I have these jvms:

java version "1.6.0_0"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.4.1) (6b14-1.4.1-0ubuntu7)
OpenJDK Server VM (build 14.0-b08, mixed mode)

java version "1.5.0_18"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_18-b02)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 1.5.0_18-b02, mixed mode)