So, when you run it from your terminal window, is StarOffice actually doing anything (popping up windows, logo, etc)??

What happens if you're at a non-X console and try to run it (eg, kill X and try it just from the command line)??

If it's not popping anything up in X, it Star Office may just be looking for the display variable to be set as a prerequisite (eg, it *thinks* it's going to be displaying something, but the macro really doesn't display anything at all). In that case, you may be able to get away with xvfb, the X virtual frame buffer. It basically creates a dummy xserver listening on whatever display you tell it to. Then, you can specify a display variable as posted above, and let it do it's thing, without having to keep a regular X session open all the time for nothing.

Disclaimer: I haven't really played with xvfb myself, I have no idea how much memory it takes, it's limitations, etc.