1.8.4stable?

Derek Atkins warlord at MIT.EDU
Wed Jul 9 12:12:58 CDT 2003


Hi,

CL Gilbert <Lamont_Gilbert at RigidSoftware.com> writes:

> I am just starting with GnuCash.  First install was yesterday.  I had a
> couple of issue.  I imported from a qif file, but then after I got
> finished with all the work or importing, it refused to save it, trying
> to save in some weird directory which was a combination of its hidden
> directory, and the directory I was telling it to save in.  After 2
> minutes of me trying different paths to no avail, it finially gave up
> the ghose.  Guppi crashed along with it.

What do you mean that it "refused to save it"?  Can you be more explicit
about what it was trying to do and what failed?  GnuCash will save some
ancillary data in $HOME/.gnome and $HOME/.gnucash as well as pulling the
data file wherever you tell it.

In what way did "it finally [give] up the ghose[sic]"?  Did it die/crash?
Did it pop up bug-buddy?  What were you doing when it did this?  Can you
reproduce the problem?  Can you get a stack trace from the problem? 

Unfortunately, "it died" isn't useful.

> So my question is, is importing the main instable portion, can I expect
> the program to behave itself.  Is it safe to move one of my smaller
> accounts from quicken to GnuCash?  Does it corrupt any data files?  What
> should my backup strategy be?

Well, gnucash is a large problem -- there are bound to be bugs in it.
Indeed, there is a list of over 200 bugs and feature requests right
now.  Version 1.8.4 is pretty stable -- there are few _known_ bugs
that cause crashes in normal situations.  I've not heard of the
importer being unstable (although I've heard of it failing to import
some data correctly).

So, safety is in the eye of the beholder.  I'll grant you this:  if you
lose your data under gnucash the authors will give you triple your money
back (that you paid for gnucash).  :)

I've never seen 1.8.4 corrupt data files.

As for backups, GnuCash will automatically keep log files and backup
files for 30 days (and auto-delete them after that).

> Quicken just works.  I got the $40 too, so its not a problem upgrading
> to the new quicken.  But I would prefer to use GnuCash in my transition
> to Linux [its supposed to be more stable and stuff :)]

Quicken also is a paid product, and has a team of a hundred developers
working on it.  GnuCash is free, open source, and none of the
developers are paid to work on it, so they have to squeeze time into
their otherwise busy work schedules to find time to work on gnucash.

IMHO, GnuCash is pretty stable.  I use it for my consulting business.
Have I seen it crash?  Yes.  Have I been able to reproduce every
crash?  No.  GnuCash is a complicated piece of software, and I'm sure
there are some race conditions in there, or someone made a change in
one place that affected somewhere else.

My best advice to you: "save early, save often".

-derek
-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available


More information about the gnucash-user mailing list