Help for the guru-less

[Lewis Overton]

What I would LIKE to see is a list of dependencies that break version
whatever of the main program or, alternatively, those that seem OK. Seems
like a lot of work to extract that from somewhat loose reports of troubles,
especially when there are so many *nix distributions to consider. Wishful
thinking.

I suppose the way to test a new release is to download all the dependencies
and libraries into a completely separate test environment and try it out as
far from "reality" as possible. I wonder if that can be done safely on a
single machine.

Describing on the Wiki how to set up such a test bed would be a good process
for some clever person. I'd write it if I knew how to do it! :(  I'd help
with editing and testing if anyone wants to volunteer.

Seems like the core of the issue is 'if it ain't broke, don't break it.'
That's why gnucash IS still running. I HAVEN'T upgraded anything lately.
After the upgrade to 2.0.4, and with help from the chat-group, I found what
else to rebuild. But it is also why I would hesitate to recommend gnucash or
other FOSS to friends and neighbors. Many never upgrade anything and
compiling a program -- even with distributed make files -- would terrify
them. That includes the world-famous geophysicist next door, who only
recently got rid of Windows 95.

Thanks for answering.
Lewy

On 2/21/07, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, Lewis Overton wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > 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.'
>
> [snip]
>
> > Comparing GC dependencies with outdated items reveals that some overlap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 occurs (those marked "y") are both outdated and used by GC.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
>
>