[GNC-dev] Wiki Building Instructions Reorganization

[Geert Janssens]

Op donderdag 20 september 2018 22:21:25 CEST schreef davidcousens49 at gmail.com:
> On Thu, 2018-09-20 at 11:37 -0500, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> > From the installation page (which includes some RHEL based distro links) I
> > see there are breakout pages for FreeBSD and Solaris. (now OpenIndiana)
> > Are these still relevant? Should the ‘FreeBSD’ page be re-labeled ‘BSD’?
> > The Solaris page looks like it is circa 2007.
> 
> Unless there are really significant differences from distribution to
> distribution and I doubt there are really apart from those above.

Don't be mistaken by the similarity in names. The *BSD family has various 
independent package management systems, which I otherwise have no experience 
with at all :)
But a quick net search revealed netbsd uses pkg_add/pkg_remove and a make 
based installation system to install directly from source. Freebsd has a "pgk" 
tool (without the _add,_remove parts) to install binaries and a ports system 
to install directly from sources.

Having said all that I don't expect you to detail all of that. For starters I 
believe most *BSD users are more accustomed to building from source because 
it's inherently integrated in their system. So I expect most of them can read 
linux based build instructions and translate them to their *BSD flavor. In 
addition if extra instructions are desirable for a given *BSD flavor I would 
welcome someone more knowledgeable about those platforms to chime in.

In the initial version we can restrict ourselves to stating "GnuCash is known 
to build and run on different *BSD systems, however we currently lack the 
knowledge to document here how it's done". Well, formulated more nicely.

> I think a
> list of distributions really belongs in the features type marketing.

What do you mean with "features type marketing" ?

> In the
> Installation page it is a bit more relevant as it lists the distros which
> have Gnucash available from their package management cache. This section is
> probably more relevant to those that don't and those of us who like to be
> at the bleeding edge.
> > On that note, perhaps backing up a step to ‘Installation’ might be a good
> > idea to make sure everything is tidy.
> Good idea ,I'll check out consistency. The Building page is a breakout from
> the Installation page.
> > Package Formats
> > ---------------
> > I thought calameres was an installer used to install distros, not a
> > packaging format, though I could be misunderstanding it’s scope. (QT
> > based DE’s seem to like it)
> 
> It possibly is. I did a search around for different package managers and
> dsitribution independent installers. I had the impression it was supposed
> to be a distribution independent installer as that was what I was searching
> for (flatpak, snap etc)at the time ( ionly read the first paragraph on the
> page). They probably belong in the Installation page rather than here
> anyway, but maybe some notes for people preparing such packages to include
> all compile options and anything which can go in the package setup to make
> it work without having to manually bypass the sandboxing of the OS might
> help.

Calamares is indeed outside of the scope here. As Adrien notes it's a 
distribution installer, that is the tool you use to install a linux 
distribution on your PC. It's unique in that it's a collaborative project 
supported by several - but mostly smaller - distributions. Once the 
distribution is installed, extra software is installed via the distribution's 
own package manager. At that point calamares is not relevant any more.


David,

I have read your initial work on the Build page and I have added some remarks 
in the discussion part of that page. It thought that more appropriate than 
here on the mailing list.

Regards,

Geert