[GNC-dev] Documentation update problems

[David Cousens]

On Tue, 2018-09-18 at 13:16 -0400, David T. via gnucash-devel wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have a general question about building. Forgive me if this is naive. The last time I used Linux was last century,
> and I believe that Linux has changed just a tad since then.
> 
> Since GnuCash is now developed over git, can't users|developers|writers|yetis use git for most distros to obtain
> source code and compile it on their machines? IOW, rather than offer voluminous directions on how to obtain the
> sources and compile GnuCash on every variant of YetiCompute, could we simply advise the majority of the community
> (yetis included) to use git to clone our repos and compile using git? It seems to me to be a colossal waste of
> community effort to attempt to account for every flavor of every distro. I contrast this with the (IMHO correct)
> stance on encryption, in which circumstance we advise users to find appropriate encryption tools, rather than build a
> half-crap version of our own.

David, 
A lot of users rather than developers will build from the tarballs rather than from the github repositories. While this
page was I think originally targeted primarily at developers, with the release of v3.2 quite a lot of users on Ubuntu
based systems started building because the distribution repositories didn't have, and still don't have in may cases, the
latest Gnucash available. More people were also moving to Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint Tara based on Ubuntu 18.04 was
also being released. The change to 3.2 also resulted in some updates to the dependencies along with the move to cmake
form./configure becoming compulsory. I had a few problems initially  with the build, so I updated the
BuildingUbuntu16.04 page as I sorted out issues and I updated it as other issues came up on the Gnucash User forum along
with a few other contributors.
 
> Focusing our efforts on *a* GnuCash Way of building the program would simplify the wiki immensely.

I think the prefrred way for users is from the tarballs not github. Too many options with master maint, tags on releases
etc., that unless you have some programming background it would put new users off rather than encourage them.


David Cousens
> 
> > On Sep 18, 2018, at 12:18 PM, Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > The main building page is a massive tome. I did start breaking out some
> > > > parts of it into smaller logical chunks when I updated the BuildUbuntu16.04
> > > > ( which covers 16.04, 18.04 and Linux MInt 18 and 19 in effect.). 
> > > 
> > > Shouldn’t it be renamed to BuildUbuntu then?
> > 
> > I agree, the link text/page title is confusing and there have already been questions about what instructions to use
> > for building on 18.04.(yes, I see that it says this is for 18.04 as well, but clearly someone didn’t or they
> > wouldn’t have asked)
> 
> If we continue with the Massive Tome Approach, I would recommend a title of “Building on Ubuntu"
> 
> > 
> > If replacing content with a link to a dedicated page is desired practice for cleaning up the wiki, then I’d propose
> > all of the material for building on Ubuntu be moved to that page, that it be renamed simply BuildUbuntu and that the
> > main build page be left with a link to it for the Ubuntu section. As it is, the original build page still contains
> > long outdated info. I would have instead expected to see the most current instructions there and then maybe a link
> > for older versions.
> > 
> > Along with that, if older material for older systems and versions isn’t going to be moved to its own ‘archive’ page,
> > then it should always appear down the page in chronological order. The current state of the build instructions is a
> > bit messy in that regard.
> 
> Older content should be removed altogether, not archived.
> 
> 
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Adrien
> > _______________________________________________
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> > gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
> 
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