g-wrap lost - So am I

[Chris Lyttle]

I have to agree with Christian here. What you are asking for is not an
application developer problem. This is clearly in the realm of the
distributions. Each of the points all of you has made points to one
thing. You want to not worry about the how, you just want it to work.

I'm afraid you need to realize that if you dont wish to spend time
messing around with 'checking for lib, dependencies, whatever' then just
buy a distro like redhat or mandrake and just use what is in the distro.
If it doesn't have what you need then throw it away and get another that
does. The price of getting them is not so expensive that you need a one
size fits all solution.

We are trying to design a program that fills users needs in terms of
what the functionality of the program is, not how to install it.
Installation is something distros take care of for users who aren't
inclined to know about how to figure out these things you are asking.
By all means use Windows if it supplies what you desire in a program.
That is your choice to make. I personally believe that linux can and
will surpass windows both in ease of use and in usability for everyday
people. If its not there now all the 'you wont make it till blah' wont
do a thing to change your mind. You've obviously already formed your
opinion from your standpoint of 'industry expert (I've been there so I
know)'. This to me is arrogance rather than constructive criticism .

My point? Complaining is not the answer here. It does nothing more than
aggravate people who put their own free time into trying to fill their
own needs and the needs of a few others. If you really want things to be
different then HELP OUT. You dont need to program (I dont). You just
need to put aside the things you dont like and help out the people that
can change things by making it easier for them to enjoy implementing
your suggestions. Who wants to add things just because someone is
whining that they dont like that your program doesn't have 'such and
such' feature? I know I wouldn't.

If you have any questions about how to use GnuCash, ask away.

Chris

On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 00:51, David Tangye wrote:
> Christopher Hicks wrote:
>   > On Wed, 25 Sep 2002 David Hampton <hampton@employees.org> wrote:
>   >
>   >>On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 05:04, John L. Turner wrote:
>   >>
>   >>>? Can someone explain to a newbies, why setup / install programs
>   >>>for gnucash and other Linux applications can NOT use:
>   >>> find / -name "What is needed"
>   >>>to locate the lib??? that the program needs
>   >>>
>   >>>? Why is it the responsibly of the user to know these things
>   >>
>   >>Because you may have multiple version of the program installed on your
>   >>system.  For example, I have both g-wrap 1.2.1 and g-wrap 1.3.2
>   >>installed in parallel, gnome 1.4 and gnome 2.0 installed in parallel,
>   >>etc.
>   >
>   > So!?!  A "may have" doesn't mean that there shouldn't be an intelligent
>   > default.  Leaving this a nob that people HAVE to twiddle just
> confuses the
>   > newbs.  Most people that have multiple versions of g-wrap will be people
>   > who realize that configure takes lots of options they can play with.
>   > That's how people usually deal with "may haves".
> 
 The point raised above touches on a very very important
> point that techies in IT companies often do not realise the importance
> of. Specifically, unless an app like Gnucash is made an utter no-brainer
> to install, with auto-options for us great herd of plebs who do not wish
> to know the details but rather insist that it either loads with a click
> or it gets chucked in the bin, then that app will never make it into
> mainstream.
> 
> I just upgraded to RedHat 7.3 and still gnucash does not work. I check
> their website. A whole web page of stuff (dependencies) is needed and
> they expect me to hunt for the stuff that is missing and install them.
> g-wrap is one of them. What is gwrap? Who cares!! At least its a
> package. Other dependencies seem to be individual files. How the hell do
> I fing what package each of them is in. What a cockup!! I need the
> gnucash rpm to just grab the relevant dependent packages and bung them
> onboard. I do not even want to know about it.
> 
> Also I want everything to be rpm based of course, since I use RedHat
> make, make install, make clear etc etc; forget it. I want to click on
> "Install" or at worst "cd [dir] ; install/setup" and it should just happen.
> 

-- 
RedHat Certified Engineer #807302549405490.
--------------------------------------------
	|^|
	| |   |^|
	| |^| | |  Life out here is raw 
	| | |^| |  But we will never stop
	| |_|_| |  We will never quit 
	| / __> |  cause we are Metallica
	|/ /    |
	\       /
	 |     |
--------------------------------------------