[GNC-dev] Single User Installation location on Linux

[Frank H. Ellenberger]

Hi David,

some historical background:

In Gnucash 2.x we followed the FHS
http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03s08.html

Note, that "Home Directory Specifications and Conventions" is new in
version 3, released March 19, 2015.

In Gnucash 3.x we obey the XDG Base Directory Specification
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

"Environment variables" shows the defaults $HOME/.local/share
and $HOME/.config.

I would not use $HOME/.local as PREFIX because, as you show,
$HOME/.local/share would be cluttered by 2 different types of data,
which are output of
1. make install
2. running gnucash

If you forgot to run 'make uninstall' before each 'make && make install'
you can not remove $HOME/.local without loosing the "memory" of gnucash
and other XDG conform programs.

My approach:

I would use $HOME/test as prefix and
a) insert $HOME/test/bin into PATH or
b) create in $HOME/bin a shell script, whith e.g.:
$HOME/test/bin/gnucash --nofile

I would not use a hidden directory without a specific reason.

Regards
Frank

Am 05.03.20 um 02:47 schrieb David Cousens:
> The wiki Building on Linux currently recommends doing a single user local
> installation to $HOME/.local.
> 
> Frank Ellenberger pointed out to me in a thread
> (http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GNC-How-to-install-GnuCash-from-Source-for-Linux-tt4716225.html)
> on the User forum that this results in $HOME/.local/share containing both
> program and user configuration data in $HOME/.local/share/gnucash.
> 
> The data seems to happily coexist, i.e. no folders or files from the program
> and configuration data seem to have the same name and make uninstall appears
> to leave program data in that location after uninstalling. The following is
> a list of the accounts in the location after an install to $HOME/.local. The
> files/folders marked with a * following them are the ones which were present
> in that location prior to installing GnuCash in $HOME/.local  (my user
> config data from my normal installation running from in /usr/local). After
> an uninstall, the files seem to be deleted but the folders are not generally
> deleted so an uninstall of the program is not complete.
> 
> $HOME/.local/share/gnucash*/accounts
>                                          /books    *
>                                          /checks   *
>                                          /gtkbuilder
>                                          /icons
>                                          /jqplot
>                                          /pixmaps
>                                          /python
>                                          /scm
>                                          /translog   *
>                                          /ui*
>                                          /accelerator-map   *
>                                          /expressions-2.0   *
>                                          /qif-accounts-map   *
>                                          /saved-reports-2.8   *
>                                          /saved-reports-2.8-backup   *
>                                          /stylesheets-2.0     *
> 
> If I create a directory .apps under $HOME then GnuCash installs to it
> without any problem but no link from $HOME/.local/bin to the executable in
> $HOME/.apps  is created by the installation and the user would have to
> create this this manually. Once this is done GnuCash seems to run  fine from
> $HOME/.apps as a single user app.
> 
> The question is do we need to change the recommendation for installing under
> $HOME/.local on the wiki and what should we change it to? If it is agreed
> this is necessary I will modify the wiki to suit.
> 
> David Cousens