[GNC-dev] Single User Installation location on Linux

[David Cousens]

Geert

I had a short discussion about where to install for local use with John when
I started updating the wiki a couple of years ago. At that time the user
gnucash data files weren't in $HOME/.local/share/gnucash so there was no
possible conflict at that time.

The $HOME/.local/bin was added to PATH in my default user .profile supplied
in Linux Mint which is executed by the command interpreter in login shells.
It also adds $HOME/bin to the PATH and includes .bashrc if it exists., so it
is a distro dependent addition and we can't assume it will have been added
in all distributions. 
.profile <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t375329/.profile>  


If $HOME/.local/bin or $HOME/bin is in the PATH and has a soft link in
either location to the executable  then just typing gnucash at the prompt in
a terminal will start it (AFAIK as long as there isn't another link earlier
in the PATH variable which gets activated first). My own  practice is to
create aliases  which address the specific executable and locations when I
have multiple versions installed or if the use is likely to be longer term
create launchers for the specific version in the LM menu.

> That will depend a bit on the history behind the choice for $HOME/.local
> in
> the first place.

That was the main reason why I raised it here after Frank pointed it out in
a comment on my reply to a user in the user forum. It may be the user data
files can coexist happily in $HOME/.local/share along with the program data
files as it is a single user installation.

I built and installed 3.8 to $HOME/.local yesterday to check it out. make
uninstall seems to have removed the files placed in
$HOME/.local/share/gnucash in the install without affecting the user data
files in the same location, but just leaves the trail of empty directories
the files were in.The risk is in a user doing a manual uninstall of the
program and accidentally deleting the user data files with custom reports,
checks books etc.


David Cousens


David



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David Cousens
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