Compile Error

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting KSGROI3 at twcny.rr.com:

> Thanks for the response, Derek.
> Forgive my ignorance, but what is intltool - I see an intl directory

intltool is a package to create 'intl' stuff..  (sorry for being
vague -- I don't know exactly what it does).  intltool has a program
called intltoolize which the SVN code requires to add intltool
support into the code.  You need intltoolize when building from SVN.
If you build from the tarball then intltoolize has already been
run, so you only need access to libintl (-lintl).

> listed with the GNUCash files.  I'm just venting here, but why is it so
> difficult to get this app. installed - I'm about ready to give up on it
> after many hours of trying on SuSE 9.1 and Solaris with no luck.

On SuSE 9.1 -- just install the RPM.  SuSE ships with gnucash.  Use it.
As for why it's so difficult, GnuCash is a complex application!  Do you
try to build Firefox or OpenOffice yourself?  GnuCash isn't QUITE that
complicated, but for naive, novice users it might as well be.  (FTR
I tried building OpenOffice once without success).

The problem isn't building GnuCash -- the problem is making sure you
have all the depencies.  The GnuCash team decided long ago that we would
leave it up to the package maintainers to make sure the dependencies
were available for your system.   In other words, they decided that
your pointy hat had to be pretty darn tall in order to build GnuCash
yourself from source.

> Somebody should write an install utility for this thing - all I see are
> the source files, which I can't compile without a C compiler, but then
> when I download a c compiler (such as gcc), it is also only available as
> source files that need to be compiled (chicken and egg scenario). I have
> a c compiler on Solaris, but then it bombs out with the Parser error!

Welcome to Solaris.  You would have this same problem with ANY program.
I *HIGHLY* recommend you take a system administration course or ask your
local sysadmin for help.  The lack of a compiler is /NOT/ our problem,
and frankly none of the developers have any interest in building pre-built
packages.

Solaris in particular is an interesting problem -- there is no standard
"gnome" distribution for Solaris..   So building and distributing binaries
for Solaris would necessarily involved shipping all of gnome.  I.e.,
200-500MB distributions.    No way are we gonna do that.

So, I'm sorry you're having such a hard time.  But if you can't even get
a compiler working, well, there's very little anyone on this list can
do to help you.

As for the Parser problem, like I said, that's a perl module that you
need to install.  Again, that's not distributed by GnuCash -- it's not
our code.. It's just a dependency.

So, I'll say again for the record:  Compiling GnuCash on Solaris is HARD.
It takes a LOT of work..  But it /can/ be done if you have all the
dependencies.  But it is not for the faint at hard.  You've gotta have
a pointy hat and it's gotta be pretty tall...   So I would suggest asking
for help from your local Solaris group.

Good Luck, and Happy Holidays,

-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