First stab at gnucash-docs

[Dan Means]

PMJIH -- but I'd agree that more instruction on installation is really
needed. I worked hard to get gnucash running, and fell back to my Red Hat
distro disks... I'm a reasonably technical person (newbie on Linux) so a lot
of the little "config" and "make" and dependency stuff is not so bad once
you've done a few compiles, but the point of having the application is to
use it, and not to just have fun playing with compiles and downloading
various obscure libraries...

There's a common problem in all the Linux packages I've been using /
installing -- the docs say things like "Oh, just make a sym link to the
library" ...the false assumption that is so common is that the user actually
is a very experienced O/S user who just "knows" this stuff.

While I'll agree that you can't teach everybody their O/S, you should at
least have some rudimentary instruction for a few common distros... or at
least there should be some deep FAQ's / Wiki to look stuff up.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Lapham" <lapham at extracta.com.br>
To: "Derek Atkins" <warlord at MIT.EDU>
Cc: <chris at wilddev.net>; "Gnucash" <gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org>; "Linas
Vepstas" <linas at linas.org>
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 9:38 AM
Subject: Re: First stab at gnucash-docs


Derek Atkins wrote:
> I honestly don't think we need to go into too much detail here.  Just
> point at the README file.  Users need to know how to use their own
> OSes -- it's not our job to teach them.

Well, this is an important thing to hash out before I put any more work
into these installation instructions!  :)

Do you think I should simply say "Download the gnucash source code, and
read the README file for instructions on how to install GnuCash" in the
installation section of the guide?  It seems to me that we would really
be turning off the non-geeks with that...

It would seem silly at first glance to include semi-detailed user
friendly installation instructions in gnucash help (which requires a
running gnucash installation to read).  However, our documentation is in
a format which would make for simple packaging into a book or other hard
form (pamphlets, handouts, etc).  For this situation, I think it would
be nice to have instructions a non-ubergeek could understand for how to
install the software.  Also, you could imagine the situation where you
are showing GnuCash off to someone, they want to install it, so you
print the installation instructions out for them from the help window.

--
-**-*-*---*-*---*-*---*-----*-*-----*---*-*---*-----*-----*-*-----*---
  Jon Lapham  <lapham at extracta.com.br>          Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
  Work: Extracta Moléculas Naturais SA     http://www.extracta.com.br/
  Web: http://www.jandr.org/
***-*--*----*-------*------------*--------------------*---------------


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