clueless beginner needs basic advice

[john]

I might be in over my head with this program.
I'm wishing for a replacement for quicken basic that I can use in 
debian. Installing gnucash was easy because I could use synaptic package 
manager. Opening a file and choosing s simple checking account was easy. 
Importing a quicken qif file was easy. Making sense out of the results 
has been a confusing problem. I am not a accountant. I don't find 
complicated bookkeeping to be interesting. Every month I have the same 3 
or so deposits and write the same 10-15 checks. What I want is a program 
similar to quicken where I have a long list of checks going out and 
deposits coming in arranged by the date on the left with a running 
balance on the right all on the same very long page. Quicken had a lot 
of complicated extra features but I was allowed to ignore all of them 
and keep things understandable at my level.
So here's the question.
If I stick it out and learn how to use this program am I going to be 
able to set it up as described above or is that too contrary to the 
double entry style of thinking. Gnucash is obviously a very slick 
program but I can't tell if it is what I need. It would be very 
frustrating to have to learn it just to find out that I can't use it. 
I'm not finding a clear example of anyone using gnucash this way so I 
have to ask.
Thanks,
John