Installing GnuCash on Mac without X11 (using MacPorts)

[Richard Talley]

Actually that's not true. To illustrate, let's assume you have an OS X
machine with a user account foo, an admin account bar, a bash prompt
configured to show the user name, and you are logged in as foo. When
you open the Terminal just switch to the admin account thusly:

foo$ su bar

You'll be prompted for the bar account password and assuming you enter
it correctly, you'll get a new prompt:

bar$

At this point you can issue your sudo commands. Or you can actually
become root, which is what I prefer to do. The default on OS X is for
the root account to be disabled so nobody can actually log in as root,
but you can still become root using the admin account password:

bar$ sudo su

Successfully enter the admin password again and you will get this prompt:

root#

Be careful. You are now god of the machine. Remain root only long
enough to issue your installation commands. Use the exit command to
leave the root account and return to the admin account. Use the exit
command again to leave the admin account and return to the user
account where you started.

I can't remember the last time I actually logged into the admin
account through the GUI on my machine. I just remain in my normal user
account and become admin or root at the command line when necessary.
It's one of the nifty features of any Un*x-style system and is, IMO,
more flexible and straightforward to use than the RunAs feature in
Windows.

BTW, if you need to run a GUI application with root privileges in OS
X, this won't work:

root# open -a TextEdit.app

TextEdit will open, but not with root privileges. You have to give the
complete path to the executable thusly:

root# open -a /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit

I find this trick useful as some tasks, such as editing plist files,
are easier to do using the GUI tools. Or you may simply prefer to use
a GUI editor rather than vi or pico for editing makefiles, etc.

-- Rich

On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Frank Marion <lists at frankmarion.com> wrote:
> An important bit to add:
> The following must be done from an account with administrative
> permissions. As a new user to OS X, I did not recognize the difference
> between "root" and and "administrator's account". Without admin
> abilities, you cannot sudo, and thus none of this will work. So long
> onto your admin account first.
>
>
> On 2009-01-01, at 4:47 AM, Charles Day wrote:
>
>> There have been a few questions recently about how to install
>> GnuCash on a
>> Mac, and I just thought I'd show the steps that I used to get it
>> installed
>> on mine (MacBook Pro, 10.5.6) in native form (no X11).
>> I used MacPorts, and here were the steps I took, with a few short
>> notes.  If
>> these don't work for you, however, I may not be much help as I'm a
>> newbie
>> when it comes to MacPorts.
>>
>> # Use the latest MacPorts (1.7) so you can install GnuCash 2.2.8
>> sudo port selfupdate
>> # Some of the following bombed out on python stuff
>> # Just rerun command (sometimes more than once) to proceed
>> sudo port install dbus +no_x11
>> sudo port install cairo +no_x11
>> sudo port install pango +no_x11
>> sudo port install gtk2 +no_x11
>> sudo port edit aqbanking
>> # Replace the line
>> #   --with-frontends="cbanking g2banking qbanking"
>> # with
>> #   --with-frontends="g2banking"
>> sudo port install gnucash +no_x11
>> # Finally, you may need to insert the following line into
>> your .profile:
>> eval `dbus-launch --auto-syntax`
>
>
> --
> Frank Marion
> lists [_at_] frankmarion.com
>
>
>
>
>
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