Here's a small update on what's going on with the Linux beta version of Hancom Office (한컴오피스 2022 리눅스 베타)
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| Linux-based HamoniKR OS, showing Hancom installer |
HamoniKR OS walkthrough video
This came up because I came across a nice modern walkthrough video on HamoniKR, a community-driven Linux distro customized for Korean. Check it out here:
I toyed around with HamoniKR in the past, so it was fun to see an updated and thorough look at it. In the walkthrough, they were able to install and run KakaoTalk (via WINE) very simply and automatically, without any of the troublesome text encoding issues of the past. Nice.
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| Instaling KakaoTalk in HamoniKR OS |
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| Successful installation |
They also tried to install Hancom Office 2022, which appeared right there in the recommended software section (see first screenshot above). I would have been shocked if that was able to be installed, totally for free. (Update: the videomaker informs that "I have met the CEO of the small company who mostly stewards [HamoniKR] production in January. He told me that they got permission to include the Linux build of Hancom beta, but that it might not stay there forever.")
Alas, it couldn't. The download failed. I wonder if it was directing to that old URL that formerly hosted a workable beta version at:
It was even in the Arch Linux AUR package repository (where its listing still remains):
The .DEB is still floating around out there on the net. I had grabbed it several years ago now and got it installed and working on my old Lubuntu laptop. I really thought I had done a screenshot gallery tour blog post on that, but looking back in my own archives, I guess I never got around to it. That's surprising, since I know I had a whole folder of screenshots ready to go. Who knows where they are now.
I remember at some point during an update, some dependency went wonky and it stopped working. I wasn't going to brother troubleshooting because by then I was using Netffice 24 (now Hancom Docs). At that point I put it aside.
Hancom Office for Linux - now on Gooroom OS
So whatever happened to that full, working Linux version of Hancom Office?
It looks like it's still being maintained, but is only available now bundled with Gooroom OS (한컴구름OS), another Korean Linux-based distro targeting businesses and government agencies. Be careful not to confuse it with TMaxOS, which I looked at previously. TMaxOS seems, confusingly, to also use the Gooroom name ("gooroom" is just the word "cloud" in Korean). Unless I am confused as these products have the same origin?
Gooroom was originally meant to ween Korea off of the Microsoft monopoly, but hasn't seemed to have made many big strides in the intervening time. But it's still actively maintained and available, although more focused on desktop-as-a-service type applications so probably not a good choice for the casual home user.
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| Intro page to Hancom Cloud (Gooroom) OS |
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| Explanation of full Hancom Office and Hancom Office Viewer available on Gooroom OS |
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| Promotion for Hancom Office suite on Linux-based Gooroom OS, featuring Hangul, Hancell, Hanshow, Hanword. |
Hancom Cloud OS (Gooroom) is actually available right on their downloads page, with V.3 released just this year 2023-08-08 :
If you login to the Hancom site (you can create an account easily), you can begin the download. It comes as an .ISO file for burning to a USB stick to install.
I'd like to give this a try in a virtual machine.
Maybe when some free time opens up. I'm just imagining all the annoying little errors that could pop up along the way and need to be troubleshooted.
If you want to take a deeper dive, you can also check out Hancom's Gooroom repository on GitHub:
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| Hancom Gooroom on GitHub |
In the meantime, reminder that Hancom Docs suite online is 100% free in any browser, and works pretty well for dealing with HWP files. I featured some screenshots of that previously. It's still the best choice for casual HWP users.
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