Help for the guru-less

[Rich Shepard]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, Lewis Overton wrote:

> How about some advice to the less guru-istic on using open source software
> like GnuCash. If this isn't the right place for such a questions, tell me.

Lewis,

   Looks like a very good place to me.

> Basically, I'm intimidated. The discussions about problems installing
> 2.0.5 are beyond my ability to readily resolve, sometimes even to
> understand. I suspect I'm not alone in this.

   This is a distribution issue. Slackware comes with KDE but not Gnome.
Gnucash requires the latter. Ergo, despite the appreciated efforts of the
Gnome SlackBuild project and Freerock Gnome, not all their available
packages are what Gnucash needs.

> Of more concern is the idea that upgrades to g-wrap or aqbanking or
> goffice could break 2.0.4. Since I depend on gnucash (read here: nice
> program!) I'm reluctant to upgrade ANYTHING. How can I tell what is
> reasonably save and what is risky?

   If it works for you, you do nothing that throws an error, don't upgrade!
For some reason, a lot of folks in the *nix world want to be on the bleeding
edge and upgrade weekly, even daily. A much better philosophy is 'if it
ain't broke, don't break it.'

   In my case, I upgraded from both Slackware-10.2 (where gnucash-2.0.1
worked just fine) to -11.0 and from the 2.4.32 kernel to the 2.6.19.2
kernel. Neither Gnucash-2.0.1 nor -2.0.4 would work. Even after I upgraded
the Freerock Gnome to -current.

> Comparing GC dependencies with outdated items reveals that some overlap
> occurs (those marked "y") are both outdated and used by GC. On my MacBook
> ...

   Is Gnucash still running despite this?

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |    The Environmental Permitting
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