Giving up on Gnucash
Neil Williams
linux at codehelp.co.uk
Sat Apr 23 14:32:25 EDT 2005
On Saturday 23 April 2005 5:47 pm, Stephen Fisher wrote:
Please send to the list, not to ME!
> Thanks Neil:
> > So your original question doesn't stand. GnuCash is included in OSX
> > because
> > OSX includes the option of using Fink which includes GnuCash in it's
> > main
> > package archive. True, it is an immense download from a base OSX
> > system to
> > install X11, Fink and then GnuCash. That won't change. What you should
> > notice
> > is that upgrading an existing installation is far simpler. Optional
> > packages
> > are still deemed to be included in the distro, GnuCash is optional in
> > all
> > distributions AFAIK. It's hardly as essential as bash or perl.
>
> My comparison and where I'd like to see gnucash get to on OSX/X11 is
> something like openoffice.
Careful there, this is not how you install C applications on OSX UNLESS you
have a licence from Apple.
> Getting X11 up and running is easy. It's on
> the OSX disks you install it and done. With openoffice, you download a
> .dmg file, run the OSX type installer, click through a few buttons and
> done.
That's because of Java. You can't compare OOo with any other application, Mac
or GNU, only with other Java apps and there aren't that many.
There are two ways to install a non-Java graphical program on OSX.
1. You buy a licence from Apple and agree to their prohibitive terms to allow
you to create a .dmg file that can be downloaded and installed just like
iTunes. This is even harder than porting to Gnome2 - it's a completely new
GUI. (We are not going down that road!)
2. You go via Fink and add a large amount of code that implements the GNU
versions of the GUI.
Fink doesn't do .dmg - it can't be done without a slice of code from Apple.
Fink does .deb which are Debian package archives and use Debian dependency
information.
> Mysql, php, phpmyadmin and alot of other open source projects
> feature similar simple installs.
Those would be console programs, they are simpler because they don't have to
work with X11.
Compare with Anjuta, Bluefish, Gimp or Gedit - not with mysql, OOo or other
incomparable programs.
Of course, now that you have GnuCash installed, all the others will install
easily because they use the same libraries.
:-)
> My initial experience with gnucash:
> lots of dependency problems when attempting fink install gnucash to a
> clean X11 build.
Of course you will, X11 includes no Gnome libraries, let alone Gnome2.
> In the end had to go through and install the
> dependencies in specific order, piecemeal per the faq. Did not have
> this problem with any other fink install.
Guess what, the other installs used the libraries that GnuCash required.
Naturally, they don't ask for them again.
> Users should not have to
> consult a faq to install the software.
There are differences because of the reliance on Gnome1.4 which will disappear
with G2 but there will still remain a large amount of code that needs to be
installed in a specific order over a clean OSX/X11 install.
--
Neil Williams
=============
http://www.dcglug.org.uk/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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