Building on Mac OS X with Fink

[Neil Williams]

On Saturday 21 May 2005 7:11 pm, Michael D. Crawford wrote:
> What I didn't realize is that by using unstable, and running
> SelfUpdate-CVS, I'd be compiling everything from source.

Why did you choose to use Fink CVS if this wasn't your plan? By default, Fink 
sets itself up as stable.

> It's been 
> working for hours, and seems to be going well so far, but it's pretty
> scary to contemplate trusting my company's vital financial records and
> the livelihood of my little family to something I just compiled myself.

Why? When a binary package is built, the binaries as are they were built, from 
source, by the package maintainer.

>   I'd be happier installing binaries that have been tested.

Most of the tests that the package maintainer runs are run automatically 
during the build. GnuCash has lots of test routines that are all built and 
run when the build uses make check.

Also note that a Fink CVS source code package is NOT the same as the current 
CVS for GnuCash - Fink CVS uses the same code as if you had downloaded the 
latest release from the gnucash website, it is the same code as will later be 
used to create the stable binaries. You're just getting them sooner. GnuCash 
CVS is further ahead and is not intended for "real" data. 

> Even if the source code I'm building is known to work well, I'm not so
> sure my particular *build* will be good.

Computers are very good at doing the same things over and over. Providing you 
haven't fiddled around with the rest of Fink and you're using a standard Fink 
setup, there's no reason to think your binaries will be any different to 
anyone else's. Building from source just makes it easier to iron out problems 
within Fink.

> So my question for you is, is it really *necessary* for me to install
> the unstable gnucash

No, but it's probably more hassle than it's worth to downgrade.

> - and all its unstable dependencies

Hmm, dependencies that are from the unstable tree are not necessarily unstable 
themselves.

> - just to use  
> it?  Would I be better off starting over and not using unstable?  There
> is a stable CVS version.

Note that the next release, the Gnome2 port, will be available in Fink CVS 
before stable too - you'll always upgrade sooner if you are on unstable.


-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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