dependency hell

[Kevin Finn]

Dan Kegel wrote:
> 
> The real problem might be that none of the web pages at
> gnucash.org (even the download and software requirements pages)
> mention that Gnome 1.4 (which has only been out five weeks!)
> is required for gnucash-1.5.
> 
> I am well aware of rpmfind.net, and as an earlier reply indicated,
> the RPMs one grabs from there are a mixed bag.  I'm not sure I'm
> willing to trust them 100%.  I'd be much happier with an authoritative
> set of links on the gnucash web page.  The 'Requirements' page is
> helpful for developers, but nowhere near easy enough for average users.
> 

     Ximian used to have a link on their site which was a page
containing all of the necessary libraries and -devel packages for each
supported distribution.  I found it very helpful when trying to get up
to speed on gnucash.  Unfortunately I've lost that bookmark and can't
seem to find the page again while cruising around their site.  I haven't
tried out the installer, assuming you can get -devel packages through
there then that would work too.  If the gnucash.org web page should say
anything, it might be easiest to just point people to the Ximian
installer.  Right now the "Software Requirements" page doesn't mention
that Gnome 1.4 is a requirement, it just points to gnome.org.

     The reason I say use the Ximian packages rather than the
distribution-prepared packages that rpmfind will dig up is because I had
some problems at one point with the Mandrake-provided guile which didn't
have threads enabled.  Almost all of the configuration problems I had
since I upgraded from an old CVS version to the latest earlier this year
were related to Guppi requirements, especially since I'd never bothered
to install python and had some problems getting libpython1.5.so. 

     I really like the guppi charts and consider them to be worth the
effort if I'm going to be building gnucash anyway, but guppi did about
double the amount of configuration issues since you also have to install
another scripting language, etc.  Hopefully it is or can be made easier
for folks that are just installing from binary packages.

-- 

Kevin Finn
kevinfinn@mediaone.net